Author's Note

Wow, Book 2 of Korra managed to mess up my entire chronology in less than thirty seconds! So anything beyond Book 1 of LoK probably won't be part of the canon of this world. Also, it's been a while, hasn't it? I won't promise that updates will start coming faster, but I will promise that I won't stop writing this story, no matter the roadblocks thrown in my way... Anyway: we're finally at the first task, so let's get to it!

Harry Potter: The Last Avatar

Book 1: Water

Chapter 14: The Last Dragon

It was gigantic.

Up until that moment, Harry hadn't quite believed. Dragons had been extinct for hundreds of years, after all. The last one had been killed during the Hundred Year War by a Fire Nation general that they called The Dragon of the West, in honour of this accomplishment. Harry knew that and more since he'd spent countless hours in the library over the past two weeks. The more pages he turned and the more scrolls he unrolled, the more unbelievable it all felt. The more he read about unbendable multicoloured flames and supposed weak spots - eyes, and not much else - the less likely it seemed that Ron could be right.

Even as he awoke on the day of the first task, feeling as prepared as he could be, he didn't believe. When McGonagall brought him away from breakfast and walked him down towards the stadium he saw a path of fallen trees, uprooted and flattened against the ground as if by something enormous being brought out from the depths of the forest. Even as he and the other champions were given instructions and rules, and told that the objective was to retrieve a Sunstone and get out unscathed (and even though Harry now knew that the Sunstone was a symbol of an ancient Dragon-worshipping civilization).

He still couldn't quite bring himself to believe.

But as he exited the dim tunnel, a cold wind cutting into his cheeks, Harry saw, and he believed.

It was gigantic - impossibly huge; many times larger than the statue that had snaked its way around Phoenix Hall. It looked too big to be alive, and it lay unmoving in the middle of the stadium, its head buried somewhere inside its long coiled form so that all Harry was presented with was a glittering wall of red scales. It was so still that it could have been a statue - though one of the same ridiculous scale as the statue that stood on Aang Memorial Island and welcomed immigrants to the Republic. Except a statue of a Dragon would surely be made in a menacing and impressive pose... This thing looked for all the world like a giant sleeping snake, curled in on itself.

Harry was reminded - how could he not be? - of the Chamber of Secrets.

Except you can't burn this one to a crisp...

His first thought was to go straight back up the tunnel. Why anyone in their right mind would tangle with such a creature was beyond him. But instead he took a few steps out onto the field, his bare feet whispering him past a line of white gravel, and then he was inside the Duelling Circle. With a Dragon.

"Never Tickle a Sleeping Dragon."

The Duelling Grounds stood largely unaltered, though the Dragon itself took up a fair amount of it. There were a few ponds between them, as well as some tall formations of rock that looked like they would melt away without any real effort if that creature put its mind to it. Still, the Dragon did not move. Harry tore his eyes away to scan quickly across the stands above. Not only every Hogwarts student was present; there were also thousands of men and women in the fashions of the Republic. The sea of watching faces was eerily quiet, as if they too had the Hogwarts motto in mind.

BZZZZZT!

There was a flash and crackle of lightning and, confused, Harry ran along the line of white gravel until a man came to view, standing stupidly close to the Dragon. Harry darted behind a boulder and peered out. He couldn't make out much but the man wore orange robes, had black hair and beard, and looked about as small as an ant standing right next to the creature. He was also completely insane, as was evidenced by the fact that he was prodding the Dragon with a staff that spat electricity. Harry only had a second to wonder why anyone else was even on the field before the Dragon finally moved, and Harry's mind went blank.

The ground rumbled as the creature unfolded itself, a single flap of its bat-like wings bringing it up into the air, moving slowly, tiredly, just as a mountain would. It had the shape of a snake but with a line of white spikes running along its spine, and four small legs, two near the front and two near the back, all tucked in as it flowed into the air. It did not rise high off the ground, and a clink of metal drew Harry's eye to a collar clamped around the Dragon's throat. The chain that ran from it and down to a peg in the ground looked nowhere near strong enough to hold the beast, and as the Dragon flowed into the air Harry thought wildly that if it wanted to torch the stadium there would be very little anyone could do about it.

Harry watched as the creature swung around, its head - which was fearsome and snarling and about the size of Hagrid's hut - turning in a slow rage towards the man in orange.

Serves him right...

But though he took a few steps back, the bearded man did not flee. He lowered the staff and reached for his belt, retrieving something small and metal from a leather pouch and raising it up towards the Dragon. The man began shaking the object back and forth, and across the distance Harry could make out a faint rattling sound - but apart from that the instrument didn't seem to do anything at all.

The Dragon flinched as if stung by something far more painful than the prod of an electric poker, and Harry watched in amazement as the creature retreated, slowly moving as far away as the wispy chain around its neck would allow and, coincidentally, coming much closer to where Harry was standing. The rattling sound stopped when another man, with flaming orange hair to match his orange robes, appeared and grabbed the first man. He was pulling angrily at the bearded man, and together they retreated towards the edge of the field, where several other figures in orange robes could be seen.

Harry wasn't sure what to make of this. McGonagall had said that there would be precautions and safe-guards in place, and Harry supposed that was the purpose of the men in orange, but the bearded man seemed to have taken it upon himself to make things interesting by egging the Dragon on. There looked to be less than a dozen orange-clad Dragon-keepers down on the field, but more figures in orange stood in regular intervals around the walkway that wound around the stadium, presumably to protect the crowd from stray flames.

Harry peered around his boulder at the Dragon, which had settled down again. It was still roughly in the middle of the Duelling Circle, but it lay knotted less tightly in on itself and Harry could glimpse a mock nest with a glint of gold at the exact centre of the field. He tried to clear his mind and focus on the task at hand, but he couldn't help wondering why the Dragon had fled. The electric prod had left a mark and now that the Dragon had shifted, baring more of its long dark red belly, Harry realized that its scales had been blackened with similar spots all along its slender form. Harry glared towards the men in orange. He had half a mind to go and fight them instead of the Dragon, but they were outside the line of white gravel, and if Harry left the circle he would forfeit the task.

Forcing those thoughts from his mind, Harry left the comfort of his boulder and sprinted to another one, thirty feet away. He kept his eye on the Dragon but it didn't seem intent on moving. Harry ran as lightly as he could across the dusty ground, circling around the creature in a jolting fashion, moving from cover to cover.

Sneaking in and out felt like the only option. The Dragon was huge but it didn't seem as vicious as the one Harry had imagined. It had barely moved when blasted with electricity and it didn't seem too concerned with protecting its mock nest, so perhaps Harry could be in and out without it even noticing. They were surrounded by thousands of people, and according to what he'd read, the stadium had to be a complete chaos of impressions to the Dragon.

Harry had moved all the way around the field and could see the Sunstone clearly now. The Dragon lay draped around its nest, but the way between Harry and the Sunstone was clear; a peninsula of calm Dragon-free ground. Harry took a moment, evening his breathing and steeling his nerve, his back pressed hard against a spire of rock. So far he'd kept his distance, simply looking for a better vantage point, but he wouldn't find a better spot than this, and it was time to approach.

Maybe it's gone back to sleep?

Harry shot out from cover and towards the nest, feet whipping up little puffs of dust each time they struck the ground. He was coming in fast - first he could make out the shape of the Sunstone - it was a golden egg - and then he could make out its little squiggly adornments...

The crowd gasped and the ground rumbled as the Dragon moved, suddenly and quickly - much too quickly - whipping its head around towards him. Harry jumped, turned and skidded into cover, his back slamming against a rock that was large enough to hide behind - but not large enough to provide protection.

The vibration of the ground told him that the Dragon was still moving, slowly. Had he been seen or only heard? He did not dare take a look, for fear of being spotted, so he stared at the distant wall of the crowd, rising up in their endless rows of seats. He had some idea that he could figure out the Dragon's movements by following their eyes, but they were too far away.

Harry was dressed in a uniform of black cloth, contrasting wildly with the ground all around him. It had come with a cloak and all sorts of other bits and pieces that he'd promptly tossed, so he was wearing only the black shirt and trousers, despite the cold. They'd been going to add red details, but since that would mean coming in and modelling it for Bagman again, Harry had told them to leave it. Now he was wishing that he'd insisted a more earthy tone, so he wouldn't stand out so among the pale rocks of the field.

Harry pumped deep, soundless breaths in and out of his lungs. If the Dragon had seen him, wouldn't it have attacked by now? It didn't seem to be moving, since the only sound Harry could hear was the thump of his own heart. His feet were tingling from all the running and his fingertips tingled with all the flames that were dying to spring up in his defence - not that it would do much good. Regular fire did nothing to Dragons; that much had been agreed upon in all his research. Only the fire of a Dragon would harm another Dragon...

This waiting and hiding was unbearable! Harry took a final deep breath and stuck his head out for a look at -

Oh, shi-

Heat and light exploded all around him and he brought his hands up to hold it back, but it was impossible, and instead his own fire streamed out, pushing him away, away, away.

Cold, icy wind was beating against his face, making his robes flap all around him. His eyes shot open, and for a second he saw only sky. He was shooting through the air, leaving a stream of smoke behind. He caught a glimpse of scales but the prospect of landing was more pressing than anything, so he spun and saw that he was going to crash into a cliff if he didn't... Harry shot a burst of flame down and to the left, changing his trajectory and making it possible to reach out and grab. His hands were scraped as he clung, but he found a firm foothold. He'd landed on a high cliff; a spire of stone shooting into the air, and he perched on it, turning back quickly.

He stumbled and almost tumbled off the cliff as his feet tried to back away. The head of the Dragon, large and angry, was streaming towards him and in seconds it swelled and took up the whole world, stopping suddenly to glare down at Harry on his rocky pedestal. The Dragon had, Harry observed, lots of ways in which it could tear him apart - if it didn't feel inclined to swallow him whole, which also wouldn't present much of a problem. Even with its jaws closed tight it had great white tusks jutting up and down on the sides of its mouth, in addition to the two huge horns that raised themselves from the top of its head. It growled, filling the world with a low rumble and creating a vibration that Harry could feel in his teeth.

Harry's body entered a defensive stance, which felt almost ridiculous. Everything seemed to slow down and his mind perversely attempted to assess the situation. He could make out the place where he'd been hiding, impossibly far away. The rock he'd stood and waited behind had turned into a boiling puddle. Out of the corner of his eye Harry saw men in orange rushing in from the outskirts of the field, but they wouldn't be in time...

His full attention snapped back to the Dragon, because when a Dragon is opening his jaws right in front of you, that tends to be where your attention goes. A sudden wind ruffled his hair as the Dragon took a deep breath, and he could see the glow building deep in its throat. It was simply too big to run away from - he could flee, jump away in any direction, but he'd still get hit.

Oh well.

There was a precipice he'd been standing at for months now, a burning and boiling that was always just around the corner, and as he changed his stance, going from defensive to aggressive, he turned that corner, and he took that leap.

And he leapt towards the Dragon.

In an instant, fire was everything around him. He shot a stream of flames, as large as he could make it, right into the Dragon's mouth, meeting the tidal wave of heat that was erupting, but his stream was as a rowboat colliding head-on with an ocean liner. His own fire turned back on him, pushed by the Dragon's flames and, changing tactics in a heartbeat, Harry pulled it closer. He encircled himself with his own fire, used it as a shield and pumped more energy into it. He didn't have to push to get more power - pushing was what he did when he held the fire down.

As quick as that, it was over, and regular cold air was biting the skin of his face again. He was squinting, still blinded from the fire, and he half expected to see the Dragon's line of razor-sharp teeth, possibly from the inside, but when his vision cleared he saw the ground coming up towards him. He twisted and spun, trying to ease his landing, but pain still shot up his left leg as he struck the ground wrong, unable to roll on impact.

That could have gone better.

It could also have gone a whole lot worse. His clothes and hair was singed and his ankle was stinging, but he was still breathing and the ground beneath him was not bubbling and melting his feet off. He looked up and saw a line of scorched black earth stretching away across the field from where the sharp high cliff had been. The cliff no longer existed.

There was a huff of warm air from behind him, and Harry's spirits sank considerably.

Think you can pull that off twice, Potter?

Harry turned and looked up at the Dragon. It had landed, its front legs on the ground and its neck elevating the head ten feet above Harry. It was completely still, except for the red and orange mane which streaked this way and that in the wind. The hairs looked matted and dirty and even over the stench of burning Harry could catch a strand of something that reminded him of Buckbeak.

Harry drew back a little, fought down the exhaustion and made himself ready to shoot fire into the ground, to send himself shooting off into the air and away. He met the Dragon's eye, hoping to see when it would strike, and was surprised to see its expression changed. Before it had looked furious, but now it didn't seem as wild. It peered down at Harry with something like curiosity in its eye. Strange, how human its features were...

SHARD

The word slammed into Harry's head with the force of an anvil hitting his skull, and he stumbled backwards, falling onto the ground. It was not his thought, nor had it arrived through his ears, and yet it echoed through him, deafening from inside.

A long chain, as thick as his arm, trailed its way along the ground towards him as the Dragon leaned down, and Harry followed it up to the collar, clamped around the Dragon's throat. The collar glinted - it was made of several different shades of metal and had little figures running along it, humans and animals that seemed to be frozen in the middle of a dance. Someone had put a lot of care and effort into making the collar beautiful, and yet it was clamped tight, secured in place with little spikes that dug into the broken scales of the neck.

There was a deep sniff and Harry's hair fluttered upwards. He looked up from the collar, met the Dragon's bright yellow eye again and slowly got back to his feet. He knew that he should feel fear, but though the Dragon was strange and terrifying, it had been forced into this stadium, just like him.

You aren't my enemy.

BZZZZT!

Harry backed away quickly, the Dragon's chain whipping past too close as the creature turned away from him. It struck as quick as a snake and there was a yell and a clatter as someone fell to the ground. Whatever humanity had been in the Dragon's gaze was gone as it looked down at its prey; the bearded man in orange robes who had, again, stood much too close in order to poke the Dragon. This time he'd paid the price and was on the ground, groaning, his electric staff fallen far out of his reach.

Harry had taken half a step forwards, sure that the man would die if he did nothing, when a sharp clank clank, like small hammers striking anvils, erupted behind him. Two more men in orange were approaching, the one in the lead shaking a metal device vigorously. Harry heard a pitiful noise and turned to see the Dragon whimpering. As the orange men came closer the Dragon again fled from the sound, making the ground shift as it retreated from the fallen man in a flash of scaly wings. It did not move as smoothly as before; instead it scrambled to get away and landed almost clumsily back by the nest, encircling it even tighter than before.

One of the orange men pulled the bearded man to his feet while the other continued clanking his device, shooting Harry an apologetic look as they backed away. Harry was indeed annoyed by these interruptions, but a new and wild idea formed in his mind as he watched them ward off the Dragon.

'No time limit. Stay within the circle. Get the Sunstone. Champions are not allowed to use their bending to affect things outside the circle.'

That had been it. There had been no mention of Dragon-keepers sharing the circle with him. The three men, two of them supporting the third, were nearing the edge of the circle, but there was another figure, a woman with very short cut hair and orange robes, running from the sidelines towards the electric staff that had been dropped by the bearded man. She was keeping a wary eye on the Dragon, her hand on the pouch at her belt, ready to retrieve one of those clanking devices if necessary.

Good.

Harry tested his foot, shifting his weight and hissing in pain. He walked towards the spot where the electric staff lay, but the woman was moving at a faster pace, and she reached it first, snatching it up and shooting Harry a rueful grin.

"Sorry, mate - good idea, but no! You'll just have to -"

Harry's hand darted out and the woman's robes were on fire. She yelped and raised her hand to extinguish the flames, and the staff dropped back to the ground. Harry ignored it and instead kept walking towards the woman, who had just enough time to turn the fire out before a kick in the stomach sent her flying to the ground where she stayed, moaning lightly.

Harry looked around, ignoring the increasing noise-level of the crowd. The Dragon seemed to be staying put by the nest but there were five orange figures running towards him.

He picked up the electric staff and hefted it in his hands. Just the other day Moody had amused himself by beating Harry with quarterstaffs, a process that had polished up some forgotten talents as Harry used his own light wooden staff to block what he couldn't dodge. This staff was much heavier and had a thick base, probably concealing a generator or battery. There was also a slider, like on the Equalist glove in Moody's armoury, that was set to full. While Moody's glove had been gleamingly clean the staff in his hands was smudged with grime. It was too big and heavy for him to wield comfortably, but it could still be useful...

Harry dialled it down to the lowest setting before walking to meet the Dragon-keepers, limping a bit more than was necessary.

"Hand it over, Potter!"

It was the man with orange hair to match his robes, whose face looked like an explosion of freckles. The group had stopped at a slight distance, warily raising their own staffs or entering aggressive duelling stances. Harry kept moving forward, and he was slightly gratified to see most of them take a step back.

Harry threw the staff at the redheaded man, whose hands automatically came up to catch it. This meant that he had no hands ready to block the ball of fire that followed immediately after the staff. To his credit, the redhead was not caught off guard, and he managed to divert most of the fire by spinning the heavy staff in the air.

The fireball turned into a spray of sparks, which washed over the other Dragon-keepers, providing a handy distraction as Harry slipped past the redhead, and then he was among them, spinning around with fire following and spinning along with every move. They were firebenders, and they moved like firebenders - Harry was smaller and quicker and it seemed as if they were either out of practice or taken aback by the way he twisted his way around them. One of them struck the ground, hit by a kick that had been intended for Harry. Another had his legs swept from under him by Harry and his head smashed against a rock when he fell.

The pain in Harry's ankle was building, but it was easy to ignore it. He was in his element and much too at ease when the redhead appeared, having dropped the staff, and Harry found himself locked in an exchange of punches and blocks that tested the limits of his speed, and broke the limits of his strength. The man wasn't tall, but he was burly and strong, and pain shot up Harry's arm with every deflected strike. He would have relished the fight more if he hadn't been so aware of the other two Dragon-keepers who might attack his flank.

One big jump backwards gave him some space to think and even though he was pelted with fireballs from the redheaded man, they were much easier to block than his punches. Harry's leg flew up to catch a kick from another of his foes, who flew in from the right, her bare foot trailing fire. A wave of sparks shot into the sky as their feet crashed together.

He was losing track - where was the third one?

His hair suddenly standing on end was the only warning. Collapsing straight downwards and flattening his back against the ground, Harry saw the electric staff fly into the space he'd just left and hit the woman he'd been fighting. It didn't give as loud a BUZZ as when it had been used to poke the Dragon, but the crackle was still enough to send the woman to the ground in a twitching heap.

The man let out a groan and glared down at Harry, but as he made to bring the staff down Harry kicked upwards hard with both legs, shooting a burst of fire through his feet to hit the staff and send it spinning into the air. The man cursed and Harry kicked at him, giving himself enough space to roll back onto his feet. Both of them looked up and grabbed for the staff. Harry got to it first, clutching the handle, but a second later they found themselves in a tugging match.

"No, Chan - !"

It was the redhead who yelled the warning, but Harry had already hit the switch at the base of the staff, sending a jolt of loud electricity at the man holding the wrong end. Chan collapsed slowly, gurgling as he went, leaving Harry and the redhead as the only two still standing. One of the other Dragon-keepers, the man who'd only been kicked, was starting to get up, and seemed about to rush up towards Harry when the redhead spoke.

"Have it then! Take it and see how much good it can do!"

Harry grinned at the man and backed away, then ran, making it seem as if he was heading for the Dragon. When he'd gone some distance he turned and went instead to the woman he'd taken the electric staff from. Since everyone had rushed out to get the staff back from Harry, no one had dragged her from the field yet. He looked her over, somewhat worried, but she seemed no worse off than after a rough schoolyard duel. In fact, she was just about pummelled enough that Harry had no problems taking the leather pouch from her belt.

"What did you think - top marks or bottom? They'll hardly give me anything in between."

"You'll be lucky if they don't disqualify you from the whole thing!"

Harry gave a dry laugh and regretted it immediately as Hermione looked at him sharply. "Could you get me some water?"

Hermione poured him a glass from the pitcher by his bedside and shoved it into his hands. The feeling of ice cold water running down his throat was absolute bliss, and he was sorely tempted to grab the pitcher and gulp it all down.

"Anyway," Harry went on before she could ask, again, why exactly he had decided to compete after all. "I don't care how they score me."

Hermione opened her mouth but stopped when the doors flew open and Cedric Diggory was pulled inside by Madam Pomfrey. He was whisked behind some curtains, leaving a cloud of dust behind, but not before Harry could see the smile on his lips and the golden egg clutched tight in his hands. Harry gave a sideways look at the Sunstone that he'd thrown unceremoniously into a chair, next to the smudged and blackened goggles.

He leaned back against the hard pillow of his cot, hampered only slightly by Hermione's vicelike grip on his forearm. Above were bright florescent lights, attempting to blind him. They were in a medical facility that looked far more modern than the Hospital Wing, with various electronic devices that Pomfrey seemed to have no use for, much like the white clad women who were there to assist her healing. Pomfrey had dealt with the pain in his ankle quick enough but had ordered him to stay off the foot until she'd finished treating the other champions.

"You don't care about the points? You're really just doing this to give me a heart attack, then?"

Harry grinned and shrugged.

He hadn't told her of Crouch's threat mostly because he didn't think she would believe him. She'd never had much patience for his theories in the past, and he didn't want to listen to her trying to explain it all away, telling him he was reading too much into Captain Crouch's words. Perhaps he was being unfair - perhaps she would believe him - but then she'd want to talk it all over and Harry would be stuck thinking about it all the time. No, time spent with Hermione was still normal, and Harry wanted to keep it that way. The whole thing was putting yet another hamper on their friendship, though you wouldn't be able to tell from the way she'd brutalized him with her hug the second Pomfrey let her into the ward.

"I think you just made more damage than the Dragon," Harry had told her, laughing, when she finally let go, and the smile hadn't left him for the next fifteen minutes. Beating the task had given him a wonderful sense of freedom - he'd been overtaken by an irrational but highly pleasant feeling of giddy omnipotence. He'd actually beaten the task; undermined its whole premise without actually breaking the rules.

Just after taking the clanker he had looked back towards the Dragon-keepers who were dragging one another off the field, and the redhead had looked back at him in horror. The redhead was the only uninjured Dragon-keeper, possibly the leader and probably the most capable fighter, and Harry hadn't known if the man would prioritize getting the clanker back from Harry, or getting the injured Dragon-keepers off the field. Harry had been prepared to fight anyone who tried to take it from him, but his ankle was throbbing at that point, and he hadn't been at all sure how it would turn out.

But the man hadn't tried to take it off him, and so the only sour note in the composition was the hint of disgust Harry felt at how he'd made the Dragon flee. He'd half-hoped he wouldn't need the clanker, but when he approached the nest for the final time the Dragon had glared down at him without any hint of the intelligence he'd glimpsed before, and as it got ready to pounce Harry had raised the small metal device and... made the Dragon cower.

Harry sighed, the grin finally leaving his lips.

Dragons should not cower.

The sense of power remained. He no longer felt trapped - rather, he felt as if he could look upon the world and say 'yes' and it would be so, or 'no' and it would not. Hopefully it was some chemical reaction in his brain, brought on by facing a Dragon - he suspected he would become a real dickhead if it didn't wear off soon.

"Well," Hermione said. "I thought it was brilliant. Any way to get that monster away..."

"Yes," Harry said. "Monster..."

Entering the field had been like walking into a bubble of the past. Stealing an egg from a sleeping Dragon was something of ballads and plays, not of real life. But when he left the Duelling Circle the real world came slamming back with the click click of its cameras and the walls of watching faces and it struck him how fake it all felt. There had been no real eggs in that nest, and the Dragon hadn't been sleeping - it had been nursing its wounds.

Shard.

That voice had been real, though. Or, it hadn't quite been a voice - it was more like the meaning of the word itself had been boiled down and poured into his mind, still scolding hot. It had left an aftertaste of ashes inside his head.

The room trembled, sending a ripple through the pitcher of water on his bedside, and just outside the doors thousands of people cried out all at once.

"Come on," Harry said, slipping his bare feet onto the cold tiles. "I already missed Diggory."

A stream of red fire as thick as a train sped towards Krum, who did not attempt an escape. Instead he raised his arms up high and the fire shifted upwards, only just missing the tips of his fingers and continuing towards the edge of the stands where men in orange rushed along the walkway to protect the crowd. Their help was unneeded, as Krum rolled his arms slowly, like he was throwing a mountain, and the stream of fire continued to bend upwards, finally shooting straight up into the sky.

"Damn."

Harry's eyes flickered to his side, where Diggory had appeared, looking ruffled but unhurt. His golden egg was still clasped tight in his hands.

"Yeah," Harry said. "Damn."

But Krum wasn't happy with just diverting the Dragon's flame. He continued the sweep of his arms, bringing the fire in an enormous circle back down towards the Dragon. The Dragon did not seem to understand what was happening, and it did not attempt to evade.

Harry's breath flew out in a hiss.

Krum was walking calmly towards the Dragon and its nest. The Dragon, injured and wild, was shooting out more fire - none of its flames as large as the first massive blast, but rocks still crashed to the ground as formations were struck and exploded apart. When one of the flames came close to him, Krum again turned it around, sending the fire back to strike right at the Dragon's nose. Its eyes clenched shut and with whiskers trailing smoke the Dragon fled its nest, flowing away jerkily and leaving the way to the Sunstone clear.

"Oh," Diggory said. "Brilliant. Shall we just go and jump off the Astronomy Tower now then?"

Harry gave a weak laugh and glanced at the boy to his left. They hadn't exchanged a single word since Harry's name came out of the Goblet of Fire, and Harry had some vague feeling that he ought to apologize for being thrown into the contest. Diggory must have been at least a little annoyed by it, but he didn't let it change his behaviour and Harry certainly had no ill feelings towards the Hufflepuff. Cedric wasn't his enemy, and neither was Krum. And yet...

The Dragon turned, tried to lash out, but Krum blasted the lashing tail away from his person. He had the golden egg in his hands - he only needed to leave the circle and the task was complete. And still, it seemed that Krum wasn't satisfied with completing the task. He wanted to prove that he had beaten the Dragon. Another blast to its side and the Dragon let out the same sound that the clankers brought on - it whimpered.

"No," Harry said. "Let's beat him."

"Hm," Cedric said, "All hail the Republic, eh?"

"Hogwarts, more like."

"Draco dormiens…" Cedric said, sagely.

The crowd gasped as a final lash of the Dragon's tail came much too close, tearing at Krum's uniform and very nearly knocking him off his feet. Finally, the Prince deigned to leave the field. Even though he'd stayed inside the circle to underline his victory, Krum had still completed the task in record time.

"You know," Diggory called out over the noise of the crowd, clapping along with everyone else, "you didn't have to stop coming to the morning runs!"

"That's okay," Harry said, crossing his arms. "You were slowing me down anyway!"

They exchanged a grin at how obviously untrue this was.

Harry glanced to his right where Hermione stood. Judging from the pain that was forming in Harry's ears, she was the only other person in the stadium who wasn't applauding Krum's performance.

"So," Harry called, "what do you think?"

She didn't seem to hear him. Her brow was furrowed and she was staring down at Krum, as if he was a very interesting book that just happened to be written in a language she could not read.

"A one!" Hermione shouted indignantly over the sudden roar of the crowd. "Why are you smiling?"

Harry just shook his head. The injured Dragon had been removed in a parade-like fashion, herded by the Dragon-keepers out of the huge stadium gates, and only now could Harry appreciate the staggering size of the crowd. Apparently Karkaroff's decision was controversial as Harry could make out both cheering and booing in response to the low score.

"Bottom marks," Harry said. "Told you!"

They had moved into an alcove after Cedric had gone off to his own friends. People on the other side of the field could still spot Harry standing there, but at least there weren't thousands of people staring a hole in the back of his neck as his points were announced. The final judge was Mister Bagman, and when his '10' flickered up onto the scoreboard there was a second of silence, perhaps disbelief, before the crowd again let out a very loud and very mixed bag of responses.

"And top!" Hermione shouted, shaking him by the shoulder. "That's thirty points! You're ahead of Delacour!

"By one point," Harry pointed out. He couldn't help but grin at Hermione's enthusiasm as she shook his arm and seemed about to start jumping up and down. With Bagman's ten and Karkaroff's one, and everyone else handing him scores between five and seven, he had done alright.

Harry wished he could have seen Diggory's performance. Upon request, Cedric had explained his strategy, and even through there seemed to be a modesty-filter hooked up to his brain, it was clear that the solution had been brilliant. Cedric had dived down into the ground and emerged with a protective layer of earth and rock, like an all-encompassing armour. After standing in thought for a little while he had attempted to bait the Dragon away from the nest, eventually succeeding. When he had led the Dragon on a merry chase across the field he was unfortunately caught in a large blast of flame and incinerated, much to the dismay of the crowd.

Except, of course, that Cedric was on the other side of the field, running out of the circle with the Sunstone clutched in his hands. He had never left the ground after diving down inside it - instead he had acted as the badger-mole that represented his house and burrowed his way across the field. The thing that emerged from the ground had merely been a diversion; a puppet made of earth and stone, and Cedric had directed its actions from across the field.

Harry, who had made a habit of watching the seventh years duel, had never seen anything like it - the technique was clearly far beyond your average earthbender. The gambit sounded risky, but it had paid off, leaving Cedric uninjured and with a total of thirty-nine points. The only weak part of his plan was that it had taken quite a lot of time to orchestrate.

Fleur, on the other hand, had been fast - almost getting in and out before anyone, including the Dragon, was quite sure what had happened. On her way out, however, the Sunstone fell from her hands as the Dragon attacked and she had to defend herself using the entire contents of a pool of water, pulling it up into a giant wave that met the fire and exploded in a cloud of steam. Harry wasn't completely sure what had happened next, as the vapours had obstructed everyone's view, but Fleur had gotten stung or scraped by some part of the Dragon and was bleeding quite a lot when she ran out of the steam and out of the circle, the Sunstone once more in her hands.

Perhaps Maxime had wanted to seem impartial, because she had given her own student a rather low score. Karakaroff, meanwhile, must have hated the idea of a Hogwarts student in the lead because he had been more generous to Delacour than to Harry or Cedric. Harry watched more of the digital numbers appear on the scoreboard. Krum had been the last competitor and he was getting his scores last... Dumbledore gave him a nine. Maxime: a ten. Karkaroff: a ten. Crouch: eight. Bagman: ten.

Harry put his fingers in his ears. It seemed to him that there was a flaw in the whole arrangement. There were four of them, but only one Dragon, and it must have gotten more tired as the day went on. Perhaps Harry only thought of this because he'd drawn the lot to go first, but even from the start it had been plain that the Dragon had no desire to be there. Then again, that must have been the purpose of the men with electric staffs - keeping the beast properly agitated and alive for each of them... Harry gritted his teeth.

Well... It's over now.

"And there you have it!" Bagman's voice boomed from several speakers, all slightly out of pace with one another, giving him the many-layered vocals of some huge spirit. "The first task is almost finished, and all our champions have shown their mettle. What a marvellous set of performances, eh?" Bagman waited for the applause to die down before going on in more subdued tone, as if he was sharing a thrilling secret with the crowd. "What we have seen before us today is the last of a violent and dangerous breed. A sliver of the past. Claws and teeth and a gut boiling with flames! But with all its power, it still cannot compare. Feared for millennia, but conquered, finally and indisputably, by man."

Harry looked to Hermione, wanting to share a roll of the eyes, but she was listening intently.

"Who can tame the sun?" Bagman roared, suddenly raising the energy in his tone. "Going head to head with a Dragon - slaying it and taking its name - is an ancient and honoured tradition. And while all four champions have proven themselves, there is only one Dragon. So what to do...?"

Hot air was what Harry had come to expect from Bagman, but it was becoming clear that all of this was actually going somewhere, and Harry did not like the direction.

"Look to the scoreboard! As if the evidence of our eyes was not enough, the points do not lie... Viktor Krum is the winner of the first task, and so he shall be the last! The last to ever receive this unique honour! Tomorrow at dawn we shall reconvene, and Viktor Krum will earn the title of Dragon."

The roar of the crowd was deafening, but Harry did not put his fingers back in his ears. He gazed instead across the stadium, to the cloud of red. A lot of Fire Nation supporters had come - almost a whole section of the stands was in deep red, and on the walkway before the stands stood Krum, flanked by his usual bodyguards. Harry could not see his expression, as Krum was turned towards his supporters, standing to crisp attention while they were all going wild.

"That seems a bit..." Hermione started, then cleared her throat. "Are they really going to kill it?"

"No," Harry said, shaking his head.

He looked down at the field, most of which was molten, destroyed. There was spatters of blood here and there - not human blood. At first, his reply was a simple denial - he didn't want it to be true, and so the word left his lips without any real thought - but it hardened into something else. A challenge, or a promise... A line in the sand. There was within him an unfamiliar but welcome sense of unity as every part of him, on every level, reached a resounding agreement.

"No. They're not."

Author's Note

I have a lot of the next chapter written, so I very much doubt it will be another six months.

Thank you for reading. Reviews are appreciated.

- The Sorting Cat