Chapter 26: Harry Potter and the Task
When eight o'clock on Thursday rolled around, it was no surprise that Hermione was jealous that Harry was going to meet Lupin and Cedric for extra Defense Against the Dark Arts lessons. Hermione had never heard of a class that she didn't want to take, with the obvious exception of Divination. Even Ron looked slightly wistful as Harry grabbed his things.
"Make sure to pay attention so you can tell us what you've learned tomorrow," said Hermione, peeking out from behind her enormous Arithmancy textbook.
"I will," Harry promised. It felt odd to be leaving the two of them behind. The dementor lessons last year had been different— he'd been the only one so badly affected by dementors that he'd needed them. Otherwise, he and Ron and Hermione had always been dragged into their adventures together. Hermione and Ron deserved a special Defense lesson just as much as Harry did.
He had been in the classroom for a few minutes before he remembered that, while last year's dementor lessons had been about him, this year's lessons were about Cedric.
"Do you know how to cast a shield charm, Harry?" asked Lupin pleasantly.
Harry shook his head.
"I have it on good authority that it's on your Defense syllabus later this year. No matter, this will be an excellent opportunity for you to get in some early practice. Like so. Protego."
Harry mimicked Lupin, and Cedric did, too, his eyes slightly wider than usual. Harry was pleased that Cedric didn't seem at all confident with the shield charm; it made him feel less like he was behind where he ought to have been.
"This is technically OWL-level work," explained Lupin. "But many adult wizards do struggle to perform it properly. It's a shame, because it will repel the majority of hexes, as you'll see when Cedric begins hexing you."
"I'm going to hex him?" asked Cedric.
"I'm afraid so," said Lupin. "As champion, you will encounter many obstacles far less pleasant and charming than Harry. You will need to make your way past them. Obviously we won't be practicing the more dangerous hexes on a human target, but I want some useful moderate ones to be at the forefront of your mind."
Cedric nodded, eyes blazing.
For the next thirty minutes, Lupin called out one spell after another and Cedric cast them on Harry. Harry knew many of the spells well already: Expelliarmus, Relashio, Stupefy. Cedric knocked him out twice. He jumped back up after Lupin revived him, furious at himself for not casting a stronger shield charm.
"Your shield charm's looking much better," said Cedric kindly, but Harry didn't want kindness from the person who had thrashed him four times out of the last five.
"It is," agreed Lupin. "Well done, Harry."
"Should we switch places?" asked Cedric. "I might want a strong shield charm when I run up against whatever it is on Saturday."
"Very well," said Lupin. "Attack him as soon as you're ready, Harry."
Harry was ready. "Expelliarmus!" he snapped, and he was delighted when Cedric's shield charm faltered and his wand flew into Harry's hand.
"I told you there was a reason I chose Harry for this," said Lupin to Cedric.
"I didn't doubt it," said Cedric, scowling a little as Harry returned his wand. "I've heard that he's the only one in the school who's beaten the Imperius so far. Another go, Harry, same spell."
"Different spell," Lupin over-ruled. "You're not going to know what's coming at you during the Tournament."
Harry's stunning spell wasn't as strong as his disarming spell, and this time Cedric successfully deflected it. After a dozen or so more tried, Lupin whispered in Harry's ear "Contritum Oculi."
Harry nodded and put all of his force into the spell. "Contritum Oculi!"
It might have been because they had been at it so long and Cedric was tired, or because he was surprised by the unexpected incantation, but Cedric's shield charm fell. Then Cedric himself fell, clutching at his eyes. Harry saw with horror that Cedric's eyes were swollen shut and looked terribly painful.
Lupin quickly produced a vial of orange liquid. "Oculus Potion," he told Cedric. "It will counteract the effects of the curse."
Cedric drank the potion greedily. "Better," he said, though his eyes were still watering. "Thanks."
Lupin guided Cedric to sit on the professor's desk and gestured that Harry should join him. Harry did, with some trepidation. It felt strange to sit beside someone he had just hurt so unexpectedly and yet so deliberately.
"Now," said Lupin. "You should each have learned a very important lesson from that spell. Can either of you tell me what those lessons are?"
"Not to cast a spell as hard as you can when you don't know what it does?" asked Harry sourly, but Lupin's smile lit up the room.
"Precisely. Not even when your Defense professor tells you to do it. Defense professors can be on the dodgy side, after all."
Both Harry and Cedric laughed.
"What else have you learned? Cedric?"
Cedric was quiet for so long that Harry almost wondered whether he was as thick as the Weasley twins always claimed he was. "That a mild hex can do more damage than a stronger one in the right situation," he said at last, and Lupin looked even more pleased.
"Very good. If this were a normal class, I'd give ten to Hufflepuff. Are you recovered enough to try casting that spell on Harry?"
Harry's stomach flipped with discomfort. He could see that Lupin had a second vial of orange potion at the ready, but he still didn't fancy being on the other end of the… "Professor Lupin?"
"Yes, Harry?"
"What's that spell called?"
"The Conjunctivitis Curse."
"I don't need to practice that one," said Cedric, perhaps sensing Harry's discomfort with the idea.
Lupin's face darkened so quickly that Harry didn't have a chance to feel relief. "No? After you just told me that you never know when a very specific, very mild hex will help you more than a dozen stunning spells?"
"In general," said Cedric. "But when will I ever need to give someone pinkeye?"
"You tell me," Lupin challenged. "Harry, help him. When might something like this be your best recourse?"
Without warning, the image of his first Halloween at Hogwarts, and the troll in the girls' toilet, popped into Harry's mind. "Any time your opponent is a lot bigger than you," he said. "If you're fighting someone— something— that's too big to stun, it would help if it couldn't see you. So it wouldn't know where the attack was coming from, or just so you could have a better chance of getting by it."
"That's right! That's what you're supposed to do with a dragon!" exclaimed Cedric excitedly. "Their eyes are their weak point. Almost any spell will just bounce off of them, but if you hit them in the eyes, you have a chance."
Lupin smiled at them both. "Are you ready with your shield charm, Harry?"
Harry jumped to his feet, suddenly feeling energized again. "Protego!"
"Try the jelly-legs curse," Lupin instructed Cedric. Then Cedric cast a leg-locker and a tickling charm and even the bat-bogey hex before he hit Harry with the conjunctivitis curse.
Harry's eyes exploded with burning pain and he knocked his glasses to the floor (it turned out that glasses did not offer any protection against the conjunctivitis curse). In an instant, Cedric was pulling him onto the table and Lupin was holding the potion to his lips. The pain stopped almost instantly.
"Good," said Lupin. "You've both done very well."
"We aren't done yet!" objected Cedric, sounding scandalized. "The first task is on Saturday afternoon!"
"And you are prepared for it," said Lupin. "You and Harry knocking one another out until neither one of you can move isn't going to help matters, although I do wish I'd left a little more time for you to practice hitting a moving target."
"Just a few more goes like that, then?" asked Harry. "I'm good at being a moving target. I had to be, growing up with Dudley. He couldn't hit me because he couldn't catch me."
He didn't realize what he'd said until he noticed that Cedric was staring at him with concern and pity. Lupin, of course, knew all about the Dursleys; Cedric did not.
Lupin seemed to decide that the best way to diffuse the situation was to give in. "All right, just a few tries, and only minor hexes from you, Cedric. Nothing stronger than a tickling charm. On the count of three, Harry, be ready to dodge. One, two, THREE!"
Harry ran. He jumped over a desk and behind a table; he criss-crossed the room, casting furniture aside as he went. Eventually, though, one of Cedric's spells hit him square in the chest and he tumbled to the floor in a fit of helpless giggles.
"Finite Incantantem," said Cedric quickly. He pulled Harry up from the floor while Lupin set the furniture to rights with a casual wave of his wand.
"Next time we do that, I'm bringing my Firebolt," Harry declared.
"You should!" agreed Cedric eagerly. "I miss Quidditch so much. I'm happy I have the opportunity to compete in the Tournament, but canceling Quidditch for the year…"
"It's out of order," Harry agreed.
"We could've done both," said Cedric. "Even if I had to give up my place on the Hufflepuff team, we've got a few good Chasers coming up, we could move Rawson to Seeker."
Harry thought they might have talked all night about the grave injustice of a school year without Quidditch if Lupin hadn't ordered them back to their own dormitories.
Harry suddenly felt beaten and exhausted, but he didn't want Lupin or Cedric to see how tired he was. They might decide that Cedric should go easier on him next time or, worse, that Cedric should have an older, more experienced training partner.
He reached the fourth-year Gryffindor boys' dormitory just as Dean, Seamus, Neville, and Ron were getting ready for bed. His roommates immediately took in the sight of his red eyes— the potion had gotten rid of all of the pain and most of the swelling, but apparently not the color— and began to speculate as to why Harry had been crying. Seamus thought it must have been a girl; Dean said Harry was probably still sulking because there was no Quidditch this year. Ron helpfully volunteered that maybe the house-elves in the kitchen had decided never again to make treacle tart, and Neville laughed rather too hard at that.
Harry told the lot of them to sod off before collapsing into his own bed, looking forward to the first task almost as much as if he had been competing himself.
The next few days flew by, and before Harry knew it Professor Sprout was escorting Cedric out of the Great Hall midway through lunch. The entire Hufflepuff table stood to send Cedric off. Harry, with a quick apologetic glance at Angelina, stood as well, and a smattering of other Gryffindors (mostly girls) joined him. Ron looked at him as if he had suddenly taken leave of his senses, but on his other side Hermione smiled and stood.
The three of them walked together onto the grounds about an hour later. Fred and George, they found, were hard at work distributing owl-order forms for Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes in at least four languages. They also carried bags filled with trick wands and their newest invention, something called a puking pastille. "We'll have a whole line of skiving snackboxees sometime soon," Fred was loudly explaining to an interested Beauxbatons boy when George hissed at him to be quiet.
"Look," George whispered. "Percy. He sees us, he'll tell Mum, and we'll have a Howler by tonight."
Indeed, Percy was seated at the judges' table next to Igor Karkaroff. It seemed that the Ministry still hadn't chosen an official replacement for Barty Crouch as liaison to the Triwizard Tournament.
"Shouldn't have to tiptoe around Percy," muttered Fred. "Too stupid to tell his pet rat was really a dark wizard—"
"Hey!" objected Ron loudly.
"Well, at least you didn't worship your boss who was hiding another dark wizard, Ronniekins," said George. The twins moved deeper into the crowd, putting as many people in between themselves and Percy as possible.
Harry, Ron, and Hermione walked in the other direction to see if there was any chance of getting good seats close to the front of the makeshift stadium. They managed it, but only by squeezing all three of their bodies into a seat meant for one. Hermione ended up balanced on Ron and Harry's laps, but they all agreed that that was a small price to pay for a better view.
They had just settled into an almost comfortable, if ridiculously cramped, position when a small Hufflepuff boy Harry didn't know clambered over to them.
"Harry Potter," the boy said. "Cedric wants to see you."
"Now?" asked Harry, surprised. "I didn't think the champions were allowed to see anyone until after the task."
"He wants to see you," the boy repeated urgently. "You'd better come."
"Maybe you'd better," said Ron. "You did train with him."
Hermione's bushy hair brushed Harry's face as she bobbed her head up and down in agreement. "You'd better go, Harry. Maybe he's allowed to ask for a friend, but not a professor."
Were Harry and Cedric friends? Harry found that he didn't mind the idea at all. Hermione slid from his lap and onto the seat beside Ron, and Harry disentangled himself from the crowd and followed the boy to the perimeter of the Forbidden Forest. He had a difficult time not keeping his mouth from falling open in awe and horror. There, in magically constructed pens, were three very large, very angry dragons.
"Cedric drew the Swedish Short-Snout, he's going first," the boy informed Harry.
"How could you know that?" asked Harry.
"I told him." Karkaroff stepped out of a shadow Harry hadn't even known was there.
"But I just saw you at the judge's table," said Harry.
"And you'd likely see this young Hogwarts student with his friends if you looked. Wonderful thing, polyjuice potion, don't you agree? Poliakoff knows he's to give a ten to Viktor no matter what, and lower scores to the other two. Even he can manage that. I'll erase his memory, and Ganev's—" here he clapped the impostor Hufflepuff boy on the back— "this evening."
"And what about me?" demanded Harry. "What do you want with me?"
"So many things." Karkaroff's mouth curled into an ugly grin. "Wouldn't it be embarrassing for Dumbledore if the Boy Who Lived was caught stowing away on the Hogwarts champion's dragon? The fame obviously went to the boy's head— he couldn't take seeing someone else get the glory."
"No one would believe that!" snapped Harry stupidly, because he knew almost everyone would believe it. He'd heard some of the Hufflepuffs in his year whispering that very thing to one another that first night when Cedric had been chosen as champion and all of the Gryffindors had been openly rooting for Angelina instead.
"Dumbledore and Potter, publicly disgraced and discredited when the Hogwarts champion dies thanks to Potter's actions," Karkaroff continued. "When the Dark Lord arises this summer, no one will want to throw his lot in with either one… We will kill the spare, but I shan't take your life now, your life belongs to the Dark Lord… he has told me, through a piece of himself left behind he has told me…"
Harry stopped listening. Karkaroff was crazy, and even more dangerous than Sirius and Lupin had feared. The only thing to do was leave, and quickly.
He ran as hard as he could, not caring what direction he took. Even the depths of the Forbidden Forest, he sensed, would be safer than this. And if he ran into the dragon pen as Karkaroff wanted, well, he'd do it in full sight of the dragonologists and no doubt they'd pull him out. They were good at that kind of thing, he had heard Ron's brother Charlie talk about it at the World Cup…
An icy blast hit him in the back and he could no longer see his own hands and feet. They seemed to blend in with his surroundings.
He'd been hit with a disillusionment charm. He wasn't sure how he knew, or why it felt so familiar.
He hadn't ever been hit with a disillusionment charm before, had he?
Climb onto the Swedish Short-Snout.
Suddenly, Harry realized that climbing onto the dragon's back was exactly what he wanted to do, and he had no idea why he'd been running away. He stopped so quickly that he almost fell over, then turned around.
Walk into the midst of the dragonologists handling the Swedish Short-Snout, but touch none of them.
Harry took another step.
Now, behind the Short-Snout's wing.
That's a stupid thing to do, Harry thought to himself. I don't want to get anywhere near that dragon, and I certainly don't want to put Cedric in more danger.
He stopped.
CLIMB ONTO THE DRAGON! a voice he now knew was not his own roared into his mind.
"No!" he shouted aloud. "The Imperius Curse doesn't work on me, Karkaroff!"
The dragon gave a roar as the dragonologists dragged her off to face Cedric, and Harry knew what he had to do. He had to make it to the next group of dragonologists, handling the next dragon, and shout to them that he was in trouble. He was invisible, but they could hear him. He still had his wand, he drew it to conjure something, anything, to attract their attention. Charlie Weasley must be here somewhere, Charlie would listen—
Harry's wand flew out of his hand and he lost consciousness.
Harry blinked, disoriented. His head hurt and he didn't know why he was here, halfway to the Forest, when the rest of the school and what seemed like half the wizarding population of Britain was packed into the stands and watching the First Task.
Then he remembered. The Hufflepuff boy had dragged him away, had claimed Cedric needed him, but then they had reached the Forbidden Forest and the boy had told him that, really, he had just wanted Harry to miss seeing Cedric compete because a typical Gryffindor had no business trying to steal Cedric's glory.
Harry had known that all of Hufflepuff House took great pride in Cedric's accomplishments— they were tired of being called "a lot o' duffers" as Hagrid had once put it— but this was ridiculous. He jogged back to the over-crowded stands and was able to find Ron and Hermione only because Hermione cast a clever little puff of arrow shaped smoke to guide him. Hermione stood when Harry reached them, and Harry sank gratefully down beside Ron. With a flicker of concern on her face, Hermione balanced on Ron's knee instead of sitting on both of them as she had before.
"Are you all right Harry? What did Cedric want? He did so well— using the Conjunctivitis Curse to get past the dragon and take the egg was brilliant."
"And that berk Karkaroff only gave him a five," complained Ron.
"I didn't see Cedric," said Harry. "I missed everything. That boy who came to get me— I don't even know his name—"
"That was Zacharias Smith," said Ron. "Ginny knows him, says he's a right tosser."
"He is," said Harry darkly. "He just took me out toward the Forest so I wouldn't be able to watch Cedric compete. Said Gryffindors are glory hogs and I shouldn't be taking attention away from Cedric or something."
"That's ridiculous," said Hermione. "I mean, I know that the other houses say sometimes Gryffindors try to get all the attention, but you've been helping Cedric! You were the first one at our table to stand up for him today."
"We'll deal with him later," Ron decided. "Fleur Delacour is up. Let's watch her, shall we?"
Fleur Delacour fought the dragon as only a part-veela could. She used a charm to lure her dragon into a trance, and it almost worked until the dragon snorted in its sleep and set Fleur's skirts on fire.
Viktor Krum was last. He tried the same tactic as Cedric— a Conjunctivitis Curse. Krum's dragon, though, broke several of her own eggs in a blind rage. "They'll have to take points for that," said Ron sagely.
When all was said and done, Krum ended the day in first place, but only because Karkaroff had given him a ten even though Cedric had used the same curse more successfully. The whole of Hogwarts now seemed to be firmly united behind Cedric and was unified in its anger at Karkaroff, and even Krum.
"Krum should have refused to accept the score when he knew Cedric was better! He's complicit!" Justin Finch-Fletchley shouted to great approval.
The Great Hall was rowdier than usual at dinner that night. Cedric, of course, was at the center of it all, but he left the Hufflepuff table to seek out Harry.
"Did you see?" he asked Harry, his eyes bright with triumph. "What did you think? Better than the one I cast on you?"
Harry's throat went dry. He didn't want to lie, but he also didn't want to tell Cedric that he hadn't seen. "I… everyone says it was brilliant," he tried.
"I didn't ask what everyone says," Cedric laughed. "I asked what you thought."
"I missed it," Harry admitted, feeling terrible.
"Oh."
"It wasn't his fault," Ginny piped up from Harry's left. "It was Zacharias Smith. He decided Harry shouldn't see it, so he tricked Harry—"
"Stop making things up, Ginevra!" growled the boy. Zacharias. He'd been sitting close enough to hear them; of course, everyone wanted to know what Cedric was saying, and to whom, at all times. "I've never spoken to Harry Potter in my life."
"Hermione and I were right there to see it, mate," snapped Ron. "So don't call my sister a liar."
"And Zacharias was with us the whole time," put in a Hufflepuff girl. "So don't call him a liar."
"Maybe no one's lying," said Cedric quickly. "Maybe it was so wild that everyone got a little confused."
Harry wanted to scream from the rooftops that he hadn't been confused.
He also didn't want a Hufflepuff-Gryffindor rivalry to match the Slytherin-Gryffindor rivalry.
And he didn't want to ruin Cedric's big day.
"That must be it," said Harry. "And your dragon didn't even break one egg! I bet you kept it from breaking them on purpose."
"I would have if I could have," said Cedric, and everyone returned to listening to Cedric instead of glaring at one another.
When dinner was over, Harry decided to go to the owlery to visit Hedwig. It would be quiet and peaceful there, and he needed quiet and peace. He stroked Hedwig's snowy white feathers and wondered why Zacharias Smith would have lied, why his head hurt so badly, why his memory of the whole thing didn't feel quite right. He would have doubted his own recollections if Ron and Hermione hadn't been there to back him up.
He said goodbye to Hedwig and had begun the long walk back to the castle when the swish of a broom made him turn his head.
It was Cedric, and he was smiling. Beside him was— of all people— Viktor Krum. "Get your broom, Harry. Join us," Cedric offered.
Harry didn't need to be asked twice. He made it to his dormitory and back in record time, judiciously using his invisibility cloak to keep anyone from asking where he was going and who he was going with.
Soon he was flying alongside not only Cedric Diggory, but Viktor Krum— Viktor Krum who might have been the best flyer in all the world.
At first they turned quiet circles in the cold, dark November air over the castle and the lake. None of them said anything. Cedric and Krum were still recovering from the Task and Harry… well, Harry wasn't sure what he was, other than glad to be flying again.
Then, without any of them seeming to decide what they were about to do, they began to weave in and out amongst the turrets of the castle. Krum took the lead, and his skill was even more impressive when you were flying in his wake. Cedric was next, not as brilliantly good as Krum, but far above average. And Harry brought up the rear, following them easily and full of sheer joy that made him forget how awful he had felt for most of the day.
They raced to the Quidditch pitch. Harry knew he would be able to outstrip Cedric, but was thrilled to find himself neck and neck with Krum as they reached the middle of the pitch, and then Krum dove down, down, down…
A Wronski Feint. Hadn't Harry dreamed of trying a Wronski Feint against Viktor Krum since the day of the World Cup?
Harry matched Krum inch for inch. They dove and dove and dove, barely touching the grass before they pulled up again as one.
Krum glanced at Harry for the first time as they began to climb again. "Thank God Ireland didn't have you in the World Cup," he said.
Harry was glad that it was dark, because he felt himself blush.
Cedric had decided not to dive; he was twisting about above them, performing ridiculous loops and generally looking the least dignified Harry had ever seen him.
Harry couldn't help but join in, and, finally, so did Krum.
The night grew colder and colder, and they were shivering by the time they retreated to their beds (past curfew, but Harry had his cloak and no one was going to reprimand either of the champions).
Back in the almost-deserted Gryffindor common room, Harry spent a long time warming himself by the fire and wondering at the strange turns his day had taken.
To be continued.
Recommendation:
Breakfast of Champions by HecateA. It is story ID number 13238964 on this site.
Summary: The most important meal of the day should be shared with some of your most important friends, or so Fleur and Viktor convince Harry. One shot.
This one-shot about the bond between the surviving Triwizard Tournament champions seemed an appropriate choice for this chapter, but the prolific HecateA regularly publishes short stories that I really enjoy. I also especially like This is Not Versailles, about Bill/Fleur making sure their children are bilingual (after struggling with a few lines of French in this fic, it really hit home). And of course Dark Magenta, Regular Magenta, Light Magenta which is a sweet moment for Remus/Tonks.