A/N: Sorry for the long wait since the last chapter. A combination of exams, writer's block and boatloads of issues conspired most maliciously to keep me from my work. I have overcome, though, and this chapter is the fruit of my labour. I hope you enjoy and give me lots of juicy, juicy reviews.
Disclaimer: I own neither Harry Potter nor the Nasuverse.
In the Champions' tent beneath the first Task's stands, Asharu was becoming steadily more and more frustrated.
"I've said before, I don't use a wand. These are my foci."
"Well, I don't know what to do, then," replied the white-haired wandmaker. "I was told to make sure that all of the champions' wands were in good,working order. Now, I can tell that there is magic in these," he gestured to the array of ofuda, imbued paper and the small wooden ring set out on the table, "But I can't do any more than that. If you want to go out there without a wand, I won't stop you, but it'll be on your head if you're injured. And I don't know what the rules say about using foci other than wands."
"Well, I'm sure that won't be a problem for you, eh, Harry? Why, I'm sure that you'll wow us all with magic the likes of which we've never seen before."
The newcomer was a tall and burly man with what looked like the remnants of old muscle hanging on his generous frame, albeit softened by years without exercise. His hair was the colour of straw and hung in meticulous disarray about his head. He wore what looked like a woollen sports jacket beneath an open-fronted robe. Both jacket and robe were striped in slightly faded black and yellow, leaving the overall effect of a slightly overweight wasp.
"You don't mind if I borrow Harry for a bit, do you Ollivander?"
"Very well, there's nothing I can do about Mr. Potter's preferences in foci and I've finished up with the others. I've got a shop to tend to." He straightened up a little and looked over at the far entrance of the tent, where the French champions were waiting for the trumpets which would be the cue to exit the tent.
"Mr. Bernard? I trust that you shall take better care of your wand from now on?" he called over in a raised voice. The blue-clad champion winced a little and nodded embarrassedly, clearly recalling the five-minute tirade that the wandmaker had embarked upon on the subject of proper wand care. With that, the elderly man made his way out of the tent through the other entrance, vanishing from sight.
"That's Ollivander for you." said the yellow-striped man. "But where are my manners, Ludovic Bagman, Department of Magical Sports and Games. It's an honour to meet you in person." He held out a large hand and, after a moment's hesitation, Asharu took it. The man's grip was tight around his hand as he shook, a wide grin breaking out over Bagman's face.
"So, ah, you're ready for the challenge, I hope?"
Yes, thank you." replied Asharu, extricating his hand from the other's grip and beginning to gather up the arrayed foci on the table, slotting the ofuda into their proper places inside his jacket and slipping the the ring back onto the index finger of his left hand.
Bagman looked as if he was going to say something, but then the triumphant notes of a brace of trumpets sounded from outside, prompting a quick shuffle to get into their places in the line-up by the tent entrance. The Beauxbatons champions first, Durmstrang next and Hogwarts and Asharu last.
"Well, best of luck out there Harry, and to all of you," he added hurriedly, raising his voice. "Let's have some good clean competition today." When it seemed that no reply was forthcoming, the yellow-striped man shifted a little uncomfortably. Then the second trumpet blast came, the brazen not cutting the air and signalling the champions to leave the tent. Two by two, school by school, they did.
The aging sun cast long shadows over the grey-green hills and illuminated the faces of the hundreds of spectators in the stands behind him and his fellow champions. A roar of voices sounded there, the words indistinguishable beneath the cacophony.
The wind was cold and biting as it gusted fitfully down from the hills as the young magus scaled the steps to the wooden platform erected in front of the semi-circular seats where the onlookers sat. He was grateful for the warm jacket he was wearing, as he had no intention of wasting power on warming charms directly before what was promised to be a difficult trial. The two Durmstrang students looked quite comfortable in their fur-lined coats discussing something in hushed voices as they made their way to their spot, marked by the Durmstrang two-headed eagle painted onto the wood. The Beauxbatons champions, by contrast, looked quite out of place in their light robes. They seemed at ease with the temperature, likely due to some spell that they had cast on themselves, but the thin garments jarred tremendously with the environment.
Beside him, Katie looked faintly ill as she looked out over the stunted grasses and the heather which rose ahead of them. Asharu couldn't blame her. After his spy-familiars had overheard that the Task would be taking place out on the Scottish moors which sprawled for tens of miles to the north of the castle and that it would somehow involve some of the native creatures of the highlands (and frustratingly little else, as it happened), he taken pains to discover all he could. He had decided to bring Katie in on it - she was, if not a close friend, a friendly acquaintance at least and he had no reason not to help her - and together they had plumbed the depths of Hogwarts' library for information. Katie had managed to solicit some information from Professor McGonagall as well, the severe Scottish witch more than happy to discuss the creatures of her homeland, although she had been a mite suspicious.
The results had not been comforting.
According to what they had discovered, the highlands were the domain of dozens of different types of beasts, monsters and malicious spirits, from the horrific nuckelavee-demons to the sluagh, ghosts of ancient dead which crawled invisibly beneath the earth and which could be summoned up by careless use of magic to infestations of Redcaps.
Blaise had helped out every now and then, but he still had to attend his lessons, while Asharu and Katie didn't - one of the perks of being a Champion, although on his part it was more a matter of not belonging to the school in the first place and conducting his own studies. Blaise had wished them both good luck, having managed to overcome his distrust of Gryffindors at least a little in Katie's case, but had not been allowed to come down to the Champions' tent. He had promised that he would be cheering for them - but mostly Asharu, in his own words and with a crooked grin.
The young magus was jogged from his musings when Bagman, still in his yellow-and-black outfit, ascended the pulpit which had been erected on the gentle slope in front of the champions' stage. After taking a moment to catch his breath, he pulled his wand from his pocket and pointed it at his throat. After an inaudible mutter, he lowered it again before glancing down at something on the podium and speaking.
"Welcome, gentlewizards and witches, to the first task of the 2003 Triwizard Tournament! I, Ludo Bagman of the Department of Magical Sports and Games shall be your commentator and announcer. Before me stand our brave six champions, about to venture out into the high wilds of Scotland, each team in search of the prize which will allow them to continue on through this tournament!"
The crowd, which had fallen quiet at Bagman's magically-amplified voice, let out a deafening roar. The yellow-and-black wizard waited for them to settle down a little before speaking again.
"Now, I'm sure you're all wondering what the task is?" He paused, allowing the crowd to answer, which they did with an overwhelming "YES!"
"Well, out on the highlands have been placed three crests, one for each school participating in the tournament. Each is guarded by magical traps and creatures from the great to the small. The task is designed to test the Champions' wits, their resolve, their skill and their courage. The judges-"
At this he gestured at the raised podium to the right of the Champions, opposite the stairs they had scaled to reach their platform. Dumbledore sat there, along with an enormous lady - Madame Maxime, Asharu remembered, the headmistress of Beauxbatons - and a sallow-looking man with a greying goatee and shoulder-length black hair whom the young magus recognised as Igor Karkaroff, the headmaster of Durmstrang. There was another, older man of whom Asharu knew only that he was one of the Tournament's chief organisers. A fifth seat stood at the end of the line, awaiting an occupant.
"Shall assess the Champions on the magical skill and power which they display, as well as the time which it takes them to retrieve their crest.
"Now, before we kick off with the task, there are some rules. First, champions are not permitted to cast spells on one another. Second, spells prohibited by the British Ministry of Magic are not permitted. Lastly, as we are still on Hogwarts grounds, Apparition is not possible. I hope you've got some other transport, or you'll be walking!"
He chuckled at his own joke and an answering ripple of laughter echoed from the stands.
"One last thing. For those of you who are wondering how we're going to be watching all this-" Bagman made an expansive movement with his wand and, as if on cue - and it probably was, for that matter - six great screens of mist erupted into existence behind the announcer. Simultaneously, a golf ball-sized sphere of white quartz zoomed out from under the stands and hovered next to Asharu at head height. Looking at the other champions, each now had an attendant sphere. A gasp and a pointed finger from Katie drew his attention back to the misty screens, each of which now bore an image of one of the champions, from the perspective of the spheres. Interesting. Magical television cameras. An interesting application of the principle of a familiar, if a mundane one.
"This is something which the boffins in the Department of Mysteries cooked up!" announced Bagman, a grin splitting his face from ear to ear with childlike enthusiasm. "Now, without any further ado, let's begin! Champions, you may start on three. One!"
Asharu slipped a hand inside his jacket, reaching for where he knew he kept a seeking-shikigami.
"Two!"
Katie turned to him. "I'll summon my broom. Have you got something you can use?" The black-haired wizard nodded. "I can locate the crest. Give me a moment or two." Bagman raised his wand in the air, pointing towards the sky.
"Three!"
A cannonblast split the air, echoing over the highlands. Asharu was already moving, pulling the shikigami-ofuda from his jacket even as Katie pointed her wand at the castle and called out "Accio Nimbus 1700!" He concentrated on the four-sectioned crest of Hogwarts as he pushed prana out and into the paper tag, causing the ink to glow an emerald-gold, before casting it into the air. There it folded in on itself, transforming into an origami dragonfly, only as long as the magus' index finger. It fluttered around him, awaiting the command to seek its target.
To his right, the French champions had evidently found some way of locating their crest, as both had waved their wands in the air and, with a simultaneous cry of "Vaporo!" had transformed into a pair of plumes of smoke, flying out across the moors. Their crystal spheres followed them, zooming close behind as Bagman commented on their masterful use of fumation.
Returning his attention to himself, Asharu withdrew another oduda, a far more complex one. It had taken nearly an hour and three failed copies to make to a standard that he was happy wouldn't malfunction on him. He hoped it was worth the effort.
"Shikigami: Kami no tenshi*."
With the incantation, the green-eyed wizard slapped the ofuda onto his chest, where it secured itself. A moment passed, and then paper erupted into being, dancing around his body in rings and coalescing into three pairs of paper wings, each longer than he was tall. He moved them experimentally. They responded to his will as easily as moving an arm or a leg.
"And what's this? Mr. Potter has used some kind of magic I've never seen before to make himself a set of wings!" Bagman's jovial voice intruded on Asharu's thoughts "I've heard that the Japanese wizards can do some amazing things with paper, but an animated conjuration? That's something else, wouldn't you agree?"
"Well, way to outdo me," commented Katie, astride a sleek, black-lacquered broomstick. "You ready?"
In answer, Asharu beat his new wings, lifting off the ground. Distantly, he could 'feel' the wind beneath his wings, as if they were partially numb. He could feel a grin worming its way onto his face. There was something about flying, the freedom of it, that touched something deep inside him.
"I'll take that as a yes, then." Katie answered her own question with a mirrored grin. The black-haired magus sent the command to his animated dragonfly-familiar, sending it streaking off across the highlands. With a powerful thrust of his wings, Asharu followed, the broom-riding witch close behind.
*Formula spirit: paper angel
A/N: A note on conjuration: In this story, it is assumed that wizards' conjuration is either a summoning of far-distant object, or a discipline similar to Projection, the former for 'permanent conjuration' and the latter for temporary conjuration. Although wizards are more easily capable of producing relatively long-lasting projections than magi, this is largely a result of more research into it - magi as a whole regard projection as a feeble trick while wizards make liberal use of it - and the fact the wizards can take advantage of their 'Miracle' alignment to accomplish feats which would be exceeding difficult for a magus with relative ease. A wizard's conjuration is unrelated to the Denial of Nothingness, as it still relies upon prana to create its constructs, as opposed to the True Magic's creation ex nihilo.
That said, I hope you enjoy the chapter, short as it is.