AN: Here's the first day of the tournament and the initial matches and all that jazz. The next chapter should cover up to day four and the chapter after that should complete this little original mini-arc (Not a version of Arcueid). The bit that's at the end is something that I've been thinking about for a while and I do believe it will be quite interesting, I'd like your opinions if you don't mind. I've also been told to put more Len and Servants in and I will do my best not to forget about them, they just don't have much relevance to this part of the story. As far as dominating the tournament goes, that isn't Harry's intention. He wants to find out what he can expect from 'good' fighters in the HPverse and he's not exactly going to figure that out in school, is he? The Swedish vampire turns up a few times and Apolline Delacour won't just appear and disappear, I have a few plans for her and her family. All in all, I hope this goes as well as it sounds in my mind.
As always, my profile has a link to my forum or you can just use this: forum/Fate-s-Gamble-Behind-the-scenes/139203/
Please enjoy the chapter, it wasn't the easiest to type up.
Beta'd by: NIX'S WARDEN
Chapter 37 – The Tournament Begins
There were a few raised eyebrows from the staff when Harry signed in as a competitor. He knew that Flitwick had already had him registered but there was still some last minute paper-work to take care of, a photo, a few signatures, registering what items you were taking in with you, registering all bound familiars and the names of those that had been given the special tickets.
Their faces had been even better when they'd used a spell to identify all of Harry's familiars and Liz, Fran and Sasha had turned up on it as well as Len. The scan had also turned up another bond similar enough to a familiar bond for the spell to pick up on that was inside of Harry, he supposed that was his connection to Holly and just acted confused about it.
Once they had let him go, Harry had a pass with him that would allow him to go anywhere within the building except on to the duelling platform when a fight that wasn't his was in progress. Harry was fascinated to find out just how deep underground everything went, it was like a self-contained city!
Harry had layered a few notice-me-not charms on himself, but they weren't perfect, and he got more than a few curious looks that he would have preferred had been directed elsewhere. Harry knew that he still looked young despite the rapid growth-spurt he'd recently undergone, it didn't help much though as it simply highlighted how thin he was. Before, as short as he was, Harry was easily passed off as small but his new height and his incredibly thin frame made him look almost skeletal, couple that with his pale complexion, his preference for black clothes and his tendency to avoid sunlight made him almost seem like death himself.
Harry's eyes constantly flickered over the other people there, most of them human but there were a few that weren't. Harry was sure that one of the competitors he saw was a Swedish vampire and there was a French woman there who simply oozed some kind of seductive enchantment magic. The latter individual, a woman named Apolline Delacour, seemed to scrunch up her face in confusion at Harry but her eyes didn't linger on him long before she too started observing someone else.
Knowing that he couldn't leave the stadium for the duration of the tournament, or until he was knocked out of the competition, Harry headed off to his assigned room. All of the rooms were currently underground but there were enchanted windows that could display any place that you wanted them to.
Once in the room, Harry made sure to analyse it thoroughly, it never hurt to be cautious after all. Nodding his head once he was satisfied, Harry then began to cast as many wards and bounded fields as he could think of, and a few that Liz, Fran and Holly reminded him of.
Call him paranoid but Harry liked to know what security measures were in place while he slept, even if it was just a nap then Harry would always ward wherever he went to sleep. Harry had put up the same wards and bounded fields that he had set up at his tower at Hogwarts, the ones that didn't need preparation at least.
Harry's eyes flickered over the room, it was about two metres square and contained a bed, a wardrobe with two drawers built into it a table and a chair. It made sense, he supposed, it wasn't like the competitors were going to spend very long here, five days at most.
He set his bag down, the one with all of things in, and brought out five sets of clothing which he stored in the wardrobe and drawers. After that came the things he would take into the duels with him, the items that the organisers had to check were within both this country's laws and their own, admittedly few, regulations. They would also have to check his familiars and, seeing as Sasha was a little bigger than they had expected a familiar to be, they had to find a rather large space for Harry to summon her to.
That was one spell that Harry really liked, the one to summon a familiar to your side. Harry had checked and the spell worked for familiars that had been bound both the wizarding way and the magi way, they'd tested it and it even worked with Fran and Len which meant he wouldn't have to use a command seal if he ever found that he needed them by his side in an instant.
Now that he was satisfied with the accommodation that he'd been provided, after enlarging the bed so it would fit them all, Harry headed off to get his familiars checked out. He asked at the entry and was directed out to the stadium itself as nowhere was really big enough for Sasha except the deep underground parts of it, the places that people rarely went and Harry had put at the top of his list of 'places to explore'.
Once he was out there, he saw the bored looking official who was tapping a piece of parchment on a clipboard with a quill. He noticed that Harry was there and his face scrunched up a little in confusion and Harry noticed him hold back a scoff, it looked like he didn't think much of such a young competitor.
"You know the spell to summon your familiars?" He asked, not wasting any time. Harry nodded at him, if this man was going to be rude then Harry saw no reason to speak to him.
"Do it then and we can get this over with, why they said you'd need to be out here for it I don't know. Once they're here, I'll do a quick inspection and then you can banish them back to wherever you got them from." The man said and Harry nodded again, it looked like the organisers hadn't told him about the gigantic basilisk, either that or they hadn't believed Harry either.
Drawing his wand, Harry focused on his far distant familiar, Sasha was the only one not there, and focused on bringing her to his side as he incanted his spell, infusing it with his prana carrying the taint of the Kaleidoscope. "Ad Latus Meum." He incanted, a five syllable spell.
One thing that made the killing curse a rather bad choice in a fight, aside from the power and will required to actually cast it, was the fact that compared to other spells it was ridiculously long. Avada Kedavra was seven syllables long, much longer than the three syllables in Stupify, Diffindo, Reducto and Confringo, more usual combat spells. As such, since the killing curse was virtually impossible to cast silently, where one person can cast a single one of them in a set time, the same person could probably cast two other simpler spells and be starting on another in the same stretch of time.
Harry himself had searched for one and two syllable spells to add to his repertoire and had found a few. There was Avis, a spell that conjured a flock of birds, as well as Ignis, a variant on the basic fire spell Incendio. There were several others, ones like Sectis, a cutting curse, Iter, the tripping jinx, and Tardus, a rather unusual spell that was about slowing someone's flow through time and essentially making them look like a snail.
Harry's eyes remained focused on the organiser as he called out the five syllable spell and if he didn't know better then he would have thought he'd been petrified by Sasha. This wasn't the case as he had mentally told her to keep her transparent eyelids shut but it certainly looked like he'd felt her gaze and not her safe version of it.
It took him a moment to collect himself before his eyes returned to Harry and left the enormous serpent, they did keep flickering back though, in order to tell him what was to happen next. Harry nodded his head in agreement when he was told that Sasha had to be drained of venom and have special contact lenses put in so that she couldn't kill anyone with her gaze, Harry had already had the contacts made from a material that emulated her eyelids.
Once he'd gotten over the fact that, yes, there was a thousand year basilisk there and, yes, she was bound to a twelve year old boy, one that was a competitor, the man began to take Harry seriously. Harry was a little disappointed that it was only Sasha's imposing appearance that caused him to be taken seriously, by this man at least, but was thankful of it all the same.
It was difficult to keep a straight face though as the organiser began to check Sasha out, watching as Harry drained her venom sacks and put her specialised contacts in, because of the various comments coming out of said snake's mouth. Sasha kept making comments on the man's obvious 'idiocy' and 'fragility' as well as asking several questions about his ancestry, once wondering aloud whether one of his ancestors had actually managed to mate with a rock.
Once Sasha was done with, the organiser then remembered that there were others that he was supposed to see too. According to what he had, the boy had four familiars and one bond similar to a familiar bond that led inside of his own body. He looked around for the other three familiars, finally fully taking his eyes of Sasha, and almost jumped out of his skin when he saw Fran and Liz looking at him.
He did stare somewhat at Liz as, aside from her claws, horns and tail which Harry found adorable and cute, she was a rather beautiful woman. The same could be said of Fran but she didn't show it off like Liz did, that and her none human parts were more mechanical than organic.
The organiser made note of the fact that Liz's fangs didn't contain venom, as lethal venoms were not allowed in the competition, before taking a look at Fran and confirming that there was nothing instantly lethal about her. One of the rules for the duelling tournament was that, while death was not entirely unexpected, it was frowned upon to kill your opponent and therefore you weren't allowed anything that would guarantee death in a match.
Len was easy to check up as she had decided to stay in cat form, there was nothing lethal about her in human form either but a cat was easier to check up, and then the organiser asked to check all potions, enchanted objects, weapons, foci, armour and other objects that he was planning on taking to matches with him.
There was some eyebrows raised at some of it, in curiosity and surprise rather than anything else, at what he had brought. The potions that were held in thin glass spheres were one of those that surprised him as usually the only potions people brought were those that they drank before or during matches.
Potions could be a problem in a match as they were a risk because they could smash before they were thrown if your opponent hit you with a spell, that or you accidentally broke them yourself. This led to people using thicker and more protected vials which were sometimes too tough and didn't break when thrown. Harry had a way around this as he would simply put a hand into a pocket and teleport one of his potion spheres into his hand and completely bypassed the risk of keeping them on him.
Then the organiser moved onto everything else that Harry had brought with him that he planned to use in the tournament and told Harry that he'd already thought of a title for him. Apparently it was traditional for every competitor that made it past the first round to be given a title or 'nickname' as it were, the guy said that he would think 'Artificer' was a good one for him as he seemed to have made a number of interesting things to use in the tournament.
Harry had simply nodded at that before asking if they were finished now. It turned out that they weren't quite finished yet as they had to check his wand and register that too, as well as any other foci that he had on him, but that was the last thing that he was required for. Harry accepted that and soon returned back to his assigned room once he had returned Sasha to the Shapeless Isle and his Servants had astralised once again.
Harry checked the facilities and found where the toilets were as well as the showers and, surprisingly, muggle phone booths. The latter were supposedly there for those that had non-wizarding friends and family they wished to talk to and so couldn't use an owl or another equivalent for communication. The phone room was well warded with rather unique wards that prevented any magic getting in as well as sucking all internal magic out of the room, it was quite ingenious.
Harry decided that, for now at least, he should get some rest in preparation for his duel tomorrow. He'd looked at the line up and the sixteen eight man free-for-alls were scheduled in hour long slots, one immediately after another, from six am to ten pm. Harry's slot was for the afternoon at two and he wanted to watch all of the matches he could. If he got his half hour of sleep now then he had several hours in which to practise and think about his repertoire of spells and skills before the matches started.
Nodding to himself, Harry headed off to bed as his mind went a million miles a minute as his various 'tricks' that he carried on his person were considered, how powerful they were, how he could use them, how people may react to them, ways in which they could be countered, how they could be used against him and ways to negate that happening, as well as several other things. Suffice to say, even when asleep Harry's brain didn't slow down.
xxxxx
"Well that was disappointing." Harry muttered to himself as he watched the third match. He found that, if the pattern held true, there was a fair bit more luck involved in these eliminator style matches than there would be later on. With everything going on around you, seven others who were all looking to win, it would be hard for someone to loose track of what was going on and all too easy to miss a spell that would hit you in the back.
Of course, sticking to the outside edge of the arena like some did wasn't a guarantee of victory either as they could either trip out or get knocked over the edge by a stray spell. The best way to stay in seemed to be to stick fairly close, but not right on, the edge while the competitors went for each others throats. The sneaky ones would look around to see who was likely to be major competition and try and take them out while they were distracted by everything else going on, leaving it until it was just you and one other might mean going up against a highly skilled opponent after all.
The third match though was more of a brawl than anything else. There was no skill, nothing that was above what you'd see in a school yard disagreement like at Hogwarts, the kind of thing that often happened between the upper year Slytherins and Gryffindors. In fact, Harry was sure that he'd seen a more interesting fight that time when four Slytherins and, for some reason, two Ravenclaws tried to attack the Weasley twins.
The results of that débâcle made Harry chuckle a little, those two knew, perhaps, a few too many prank-based spells than was safe for someone's sanity. The affected parties were still trying to rid themselves of some of the embarrassing effects two days later.
Harry sighed and thought about the first two matches, the two that could actually be considered fights or duels. One of the victors was that one who Harry thought was a Swedish vampire and he had shown a rather graceful and beautiful take down when three of the competitors tried to band together against him. The only thing that Harry would say against that one was that he seemed to have quite the flair for dramatics and made it all rather showy. There wasn't anything wrong with that but Harry had seen that there several opportunities to end things quickly and easily that he hadn't taken, that would probably be what cost him a victory in the end.
The other victor so far was that French woman, Apolline Delacour. She'd seemed inordinately happy when she found out that all of her competitors were male and had asked them if they wouldn't mind going easy on her, she had said that in quite a suggestive and flirtatious way. Harry realised he had guessed correctly when he had thought of the magic she exuded as being seductive and enchanting when three of her opponents had surrendered on the spot and the other four seemed to be having a mental battle in order to just raise their wands at her. That battle was only better than the one that followed it because of the amusement that Harry felt on watching it, it had still been rather pathetic after all.
Harry suddenly felt a mental twitch from Fran who had been looking towards the entrance to the stadium, it seemed that his friends and family had finally turned up. His gaze shifted as they entered Shared Perception so that Harry could see what Fran was looking at and a smile split his face as he saw all twelve of them there. Rin seemed to be irritated or annoyed by something, Shirou seemed to be amazed, Hermione seemed to be looking at everything curiously, Neville just seemed to accept it and the rest seemed to be looking for him.
Harry's point of view shifted back to himself as he got up and started heading for the spectator's entrance to greet everyone. It was half past eight now and the next match would begin at nine so he was in no particular rush. Harry looked at some of the wares that the vendors were peddling as he passed them by and got interested in a book about previous tournaments and their competitors and snagged a copy of that as well as a pair of strange binoculars that were called omni-oculars, apparently he could record what he saw with them and they had several other features too.
xxxxx
The first look they had of Harry was when he wandered into the room they were in, his nose buried in a book of some kind and a pair of weird brass binoculars in one hand. They could guess that he knew they were there, why else would he decide to turn up in the spectators entrance right then?
"Hey there, people." He said. "Did you know that the last winner of the tournament used a spell that caused diarrhoea to win? Apparently, his opponent was so embarrassed that she fled the ring in shame." Harry looked up then at everyone in front of him. Only Zelretch seemed amused at his story, perhaps Altrouge as well, and everyone else looked pretty disgusted, that or apathy in some cases.
Rin's eye continued to twitch so Harry decided he might as well ask. "What's up with you this time, Rin?" It seemed the girl didn't care that he'd said 'this time' as she started off straight away on what had caused her mind to break trying to comprehend what she'd seen.
"The damn camp site that we're staying at is what the problem is." She said. At Harry's cocked head she rolled her eyes and explained. "Apart from the tent we are in being far larger on the inside as well as the outside, that and having a fully functioning kitchen and bathroom in it, there are numerous external signs of things being not normal." She stopped to glare at Harry. "Oh, there's simple things like the occasional chimney being attached to a tent or a regular window but there are more esoteric signs of things being not normal, the three storey castle with flamingos out front for example or the one that was constantly changing colour, size and shape, the one that had moving images painted on it or the one with legs for further examples." She crossed her arms and tapped her foot, obviously waiting for an answer. Harry just looked at Neville to provide an answer, he rolled his eyes at Harry before explaining it for her.
"I don't know how things are in Japan but over here wizards are a little... out of touch with muggles, that leads them to making mistakes that can be quite obvious. Of course, there are those that now and simply don't care, a lot of purebloods like to show off when they gather in groups and the obliviators end up over-worked because of the need to modify so many memories. That isn't so much a problem here as the land is owned by wizards but there are muggles that go wandering through the nearby woods that we have to be wary of." Harry simply nodded at Neville before looking back to Rin and grinning.
She shook her head. "I don't know why I bother." She muttered. "You are obviously trying to drive me to insanity so I should just ignore any crazy things that happen, if I keep paying attention to them then they'll get commonplace to me and I'll end up needing to be committed to a mental asylum, I swear I'm half-way there."
Waver decided to move the conversation on and asked Harry. "So, when is your first match and where do we go to watch them?" Harry just took another moment to chuckle at a mumbling Rin before answering him.
"There are sixteen matches today, each one with eight competitors and each one a free-for-all. They're scheduled to start on the hour, every hour, between six am and ten pm. The next one begins in a quarter of an hour at nine and my match is at two this afternoon. The first match was won by what I'm guessing to be a Swedish vampire and the second by a woman I'm thinking is a French veela, she has some pretty potent seduction and entrancing magic about her. The third match was a bit of a disappointment as it quickly devolved into nothing more than a brawl with no skill involved at all." Harry told them, his disdain for the last part clear to hear.
"Well then, lead on to where we may sit and watch these glorious fights." Altrouge instructed, her voice laced with sarcasm. She knew how Harry felt about fighting and she understood his disdain with a match if it devolved into a brawl like he said it had.
Harry liked a fight to be skilful, whether that was by impressive form or dirty tricks he didn't care, and one which was simply 'I'm stronger than you!' where they simply matched strength until one of them lost was boring. She kind of agreed with him, as far as being a spectator went at least, in an actual battle she would use superior strength if that would see her through but she understood his point at least.
"Right this way." He said with a slight bow and a doff of an invisible hat as he led them to the seats where he had been previously, right at the front and sideways on to the starting positions so he could have the best view of the action that he could. The twelve of them sat down but Harry remained standing and leaned on the rail in front of him as he waited for the next match.
xxxxx
Five hours later, it was time for Harry's match and he was waiting with three others to enter the arena. Four each of them would enter from each side and they would all spread out a metre in from the edge of the ring. They were not allowed to cast spells or use any item until the match began although they could drink potions whenever.
When they did finally walk out into the arena, the light momentarily blinded Harry as his eyes hastened to adjust to the noonday sun after he had spent the last thirty-five minutes essentially underground. Harry grimaced in distaste, unlike an apostle, Harry didn't actually degenerate under sunlight but he really didn't like it either. On that note, water did give him an odd tingling sensation especially if it was deep water and Harry absolutely loved the moon, the full moon even more so and it almost seemed to sing to him.
Harry quickly looked around, the eight of them were in position now and the seating area was far fuller than it had been earlier. That made sense as but the first day, the one that weeded out all of the weaklings and it had been rather early in the morning as well when he'd paid attention to that.
He looked back at his competitors and made note of where they were looking, it would give him an idea of who their initial targets would be. He was surprised to find that, while their owners may be looking elsewhere, there were four wands trained upon where he was. Harry smirked, if he had to guess then they were thinking of taking him out with a quick spell before focusing on who they viewed as proper competition.
A loud boom emanated from a wand, like a cannon, and the match began. As Harry had expected, four beams of light did head in his direction but he side-stepped them easily enough, they seemed to be a combination of two stunners, a disarming charm and a banishing charm that would throw him backwards.
Harry kept careful note of where everyone was and who was still in the game as three people charged towards each other in the middle. It was stupid really and the three of them were soon picked off by the others who fired at them leaving the competition down to five people in less than a minute.
The remaining five were pretty well spaced out, the duelling area was rather large after all, and they were all eyeing each other warily. A few of them tried to taunt each other but Harry remained silent as he analysed which direction each person was facing, where their wand was pointing and where they were looking. Two of the wands seemed to be pointed at a guy with a thick Russian accent and his wand seemed to be wavering between those two individuals while the other two seemed focused on each other.
Harry smirked, it seemed no one was pointing a wand his way and the tension was rather high. There was a surprised noise and the spectators blinked as the two who had been pointing wands suddenly disappeared and then reappeared above their supposed target who was also surprised and had to dive out of the way.
It was this that broke the tension and the two who had been focused on each other let out a hail of spellfire on their opponent while Harry quickly fired two stunners at the two who were getting back to their feet before he banished them off the platform and into the little gutter like area that wound around the platform. That left the Russian for Harry to deal with and he had to duck a blood boiling hex sent his way and he replied with a dark cutting curse.
There was a flash of silver light and Harry dived then rolled under a wave composed of silver light that had headed his way from his opponents wand, his opponent also avoiding the cutting curse that Harry had sent him. They both ended up no more than a metre and a half from each other and Harry grinned as he pulled something from his pocket which he promptly threw at his opponent.
The Russian tried to banish it back at Harry but the shell was too weak to hold up to it and the potion, for that was what Harry had thrown at him, ended up all over the guy. He immediately went to work trying to clean himself to minimise the effect of the potion while keeping his eyes on Harry to avoid a follow-through attack but Harry just grinned at him.
The Russian went to take a step forward but ended up taking one back instead, he then tried to point his wand at Harry but his other arm moved instead. The dawning horror then emerged on the man's face as he realised the effect that Harry's potion had had on him.
It was a relatively simple potion, most often used for pranks, that would cause all signals sent to the body to be reversed. If you wanted to walk forwards then the opposite leg would step back, if you wanted to scratch your back with one hand then your other would scratch your chest. It only lasted half an hour when administered through skin contact instead of consumption but that would be more than enough and played havoc on a duellist because of their muscle memory getting absolutely shot to hell.
The Russian just gave Harry a grin and a friendly nod as the red stunning spell headed his way before he collapsed to the floor and then banished off the platform by Harry who then turned to the two competitors who were still standing there and throwing spells at each other.
It seemed that their situational awareness was crap as they were focusing on nothing but each other. Actually, there was a look of hatred on their faces so this may simply be something personal, either way they had completely ignored everything else when it had become obvious who was focusing on who.
Watching them, Harry had to admit that they both had good reflexes, power and a rather wide variety of spells available to them. They were just too evenly matched, neither one of them seemed to have an advantage over the other, as one would get a spell in then it would be quickly countered and then the other would get a spell in and the cycle repeated itself.
Harry decided to have some fun. He knew where everything was back in his kitchen back in the Clock Tower so his next actions shouldn't prove to be too difficult. A grin spread across his face as he imagined how people would react to what he was about to do.
xxxxx
Graham Cocraine eventually managed to overcome his opponent, the bastard that had raped his wife and gotten away with it. He had castrated the guy in revenge but still, the man had raped his wife. When it became apparent that those other three guys and the kid were all focused on each other, he had turned his full attention against his opponent and his opponent against him.
The duel had been rather remarkable, if he did say so himself, and seeing as how no spells had come his way then that meant that the others must have all taken each other out. That belief may have been part of the reason he was so surprised by what he saw when he turned around to give the audience a smile.
The kid was there and there was a conjured table and a rather comfortable looking armchair. On the table was a fine looking tea set and a stack of sandwiches from which the boy had apparently been eating, a few people in the front row also had tea and sandwiches as well, and as he looked the boy held up a sign with a number eight on it.
His eye began to twitch at that, was this brat mocking him? He raised his wand to turn it on the damn brat, boy-who-lived or not when the chair disappeared and the brat was stood up with his wand in his hand and facing him, They circled each other and the younger male's wand twitched slightly.
Graham kept his eye out for a hint of a spell coming his way only to be hit over the back of the head with a table, they had circled so much that he'd ended up with his back to where the lad had been having his afternoon tea and had forgotten about it.
That distraction was all it took for Harry to send another stunner at his opponent before banishing of the platform, just to make sure. He was quite proud of his performance this round, if he did say so himself. Aside from the conjuration and the summoning of food, which was fifth and sixth year stuff, Harry had only really used two spells this duel, the stunning spell and banishing charm. There had been that instant when he'd used the Kaleidoscope to pick two people up and drop them on the Russian's head but that would be easy to attribute to him though there was no evidence in his movement, either his body or wand, that indicated that he'd done that and it would be difficult to work out a counter to it. All in all, Harry was happy that he'd shown nothing particularly advanced and the only new thing that people might expect from him is his thrown potion bombs.
xxxxx
From the audience, there was a rather great deal of applause. In addition to there being a good fight on stage there had been a bit of comedy as well, provided by the youngest competitor. The commentators did say that it was an impressive bit of wand-work where he made tea and sandwiches but apart from that he had used two rather simple spells that any school child would know and an easily brewed potion.
One of them did comment on how easily broken the spherical casing of the potion had been and what enchantments there must be on his pocket in order to keep whatever was in there protected. That one did comment on the pros and cons of some of the preparations that someone so young could do and had said that was probably one of the few things in the favour of such a young competitor, being underestimated was another.
As they got ready for the next round they continued to dissect what went right and wrong during the match. The ones who had immediately rushed to the middle got shot down straight away, exposing your back to an opponent was a big no-no as not everyone was like the typical Gryffindor who was 'honourable' enough to only attack a guy head on. The next to get shot down were the two that focused only on each other to the exclusion of all else, they were lucky not to have been immediately taken out by an opportunist when that had happened as they had had absolutely no idea what was going on around them.
The commentators did question what had happened with the other two and came to the conclusion that Harry had someone turned their clothing into portkeys that dropped them onto the Russian, they complimented him on an ingenious bit of creativity despite the fact that wasn't what Harry had done and chided the ones who'd gotten hit like that saying they should have charmed their clothing to make it so no spell would stick to it, at least without warning.
Whereas normally, it would be a good idea to banish a potion back at an opponent, as not many would have made their containers as weak as Harry had, the Russian should probably have still gotten out of the way as a 'just in case' kind of way but he had taken his defeat sportingly which they commended him on.
Harry himself was not free of criticism as he had spent a fair amount of time on boiling tea and summoning all of the individual ingredients for the sandwiches which he had made during the duel while the last two opponents hammered at each other's shields. If he had taken them both out when he had the opportunity then the duel could have been quite a bit shorter but they did compliment his use of the summoning charm with the table.
xxxxx
Harry was by now back with his friends and family, Rin, Sakura, Neville, Hermione and Euryale were all happily munching on sandwiches made to their specifications and drinking tea. Zelretch was complimenting him on an amusing display and Altrouge was shaking her head telling him that only he could have lunch in the middle of a duel in front of thousands of spectators.
As for Harry himself, he was looking around for Nick and Penny. They had shown him what illusions and glamours they would be using for the tournament and Harry was wondering if they were already there and, if not, when they would get there. With all of their centuries of experience, Harry did value their opinions.
Though he looked, Harry did not immediately catch sight of either Nicholas or Perenelle Flamel whether they were disguised or not and Harry prided himself on having rather good eyesight. Deciding that he would keep an eye out for them for the rest of the week, Harry settled in to watch the rest of the first day's duels.
There was some good and some bad, some that Harry was sure were hiding what they truly could do like he was, and some that were simply amusing. There was one guy there who kept trying to transfigure his opponents into cabbages and actually succeeded with three of them, when he was taken out someone decided to also transfigure him but instead of a cabbage he was turned into a cauliflower.
Another one was a guy that brought in a whole load of familiars, they were probably forcibly bonded as Harry seriously didn't see that number bonding willingly, it was nevertheless rather amusing to see a stampede of elephants charge through the seven wizards and secure that guy a place in the second round. Harry really wanted to go against him and see just how well those elephants would be against Sasha, he almost laughed out loud at the mental picture that line of thinking conjured up.
Harry did keep an eye on Rin, her twitching was simply too much, as well as photographing anything that looked interesting or amusing, sometimes both. There was an interesting moment when, for some reason, a guy wearing nothing except a pair of pink boxer shorts had appeared at one end of the duelling platform, squealed like a little girl, then ran off the other end of the platform and away. Even the ones in the middle of duels stopped what they were doing to watch that happen. Harry did glance at Zelretch and while he seemed amused by what was going on, he gave no indication that he was responsible for it.
Eventually, they had to separate as the last match of the day was over, a rather average battle compared to everything else that had happened that day. A few of the competitors had been taken out quickly and then it had come down to two people ganging up against one before they duelled each other for the victory. Right about then, Harry was cursing the rules that said he couldn't leave the building until he was knocked out, he wanted to see what the camp site was like himself, he also entertained the thought of toasting marshmallows with everyone.
However, now that the day was over and done with, Harry had the opportunity to explore. Letting the organisers know that he was heading into the deeper underground sections of the stadium, they gave him a warning about them not actually knowing what was below the fifth underground level before telling him that the matches the next day would begin at eight in the morning.
xxxxx
Harry was a little bit disappointed with what he'd found so far on his exploration, not much of anything really. He'd gone straight to the fifth level below ground before heading even further down and building a mental map of the corridors and passageways he headed down.
There were signs of people having been here before, not recently though. There was what Harry thought might have been some kind of mess hall with dusty benches and tables in it, there was what could have been a communal bath or pool of some kind, there was what was obviously accommodation and there was bathrooms. Harry supposed that last one shouldn't be that much of a surprise, Hogwarts had a plumbing system after all, one that was apparently there since the founder's time.
There were also signs of other things down here, magical creatures. There had been signs that boggarts and dementors had been 'born' here but Harry had yet to see one of them. Those two particular beings were rather curious in the way that they came into existence, they didn't exactly have genders after all.
Boggarts were born of fear, terror and all things scary. They occurred in places that held both magic and the emotions that they embodied. They were essentially spirits, it was a similar concept to a fair number of yokai in Japan, and it followed the Magecraft rules of belief. Boggarts were a species that could never go extinct as long as there was life in the world, everything feared something after all, and Harry wondered how his element and origin would react to one. Oh well, he could think on that another time, he hadn't yet found one but he was sure that he eventually would.
Dementors were another story though, whereas boggarts were made from fear of things like the dark, the monster under your bed, what could be hidden in a wardrobe or cupboard, dementors were different. Those creatures could breed in one of two ways, one was to simply come into existence like a boggart did but it needed different emotions, fear of death, decay, rot and far darker things than the childish fears a boggart was made of. A dementor could also be made if it had consumed a soul and had enough energy to split itself in two, the consumed soul becoming the seed that the new dementor sprouted from.
There were also several unconfirmed cases of a boggart 'evolving' into a dementor when the emotions it was created with became tainted with horror, a theory that Harry wondered about. It made a bit of sense seeing as they were both similar in that they were both spiritual beings created from similar emotions but how malleable were they?
Harry shook his head as he took another step down a corridor, Len, Fran and Liz, right there with him. Once they'd made a note that boggarts and dementors had been this way before, even if not recently, Harry had begun to explain all that he knew about various magical creatures, starting with those two existences simply because it was what they were already talking about.
Liz and Fran seemed rather uneasy with the idea that there was something that could reach into your mind and make itself into a representation of what you most feared, Harry had to agree with them on that as it was a rather unpleasant thought. They had also not been happy when Harry had begun to explain dementors, how they fed on happy memories and brought fear and despair with them before consuming someone's soul.
Harry did explain that a wizard's defence against such a thing was limited to a patronus, a spell that most adults were unable to cast. He reminded them of his Primate Murder patronus and explained about how it took the form of something that made the caster feel safe and secure. Harry wondered once more just how screwed up he was if the Beast of Gaia was what his mind conjured up for the concepts of safe and secure.
The next thing they came across was a nest of dead puffskeins, simple creatures that many farmers thought of as a menace as they were fond of the taste of magical plants, including potions ingredients. The nest was obviously old but it did make Harry think, if there was a nest here then there had to be something that sustained the creatures, a source of food and water.
Food wasn't difficult, there was some moss and other things growing here, sustained and empowered by the ambient magic in the area but Harry had yet to see a source of water that the puffskeins would need to survive. They were quite deep underground and Harry didn't think that wizards were stupid enough to leave a flooding hazard unattended.
He cocked his head to one side and reinforced his ears to the best of his ability. There was a very faint trickling noise coming from somewhere ahead and Harry's curiosity drove him to investigate it, why would there be a flow of water here? It wasn't like wizards needed a water source after all, there were charms and runes that could conjure it for them.
Following the sound of trickling water through a few more corridors and into a room, Harry found what he'd been hearing. A wall in one of the rooms had collapsed inwards and on the other side was a cave of some sort, a natural one. If Harry had to guess then he'd say that the water, over time, had worn away at it from the other side until something, an impact most likely, had caused the wall to collapse and connect the room with the cave.
Harry whirled around as he once again heard the increasingly familiar sounds that had repeatedly made themselves known since his acquisition of the ring horcrux, the rattling breath, the clinking shackles and the clack of what could have been high heels but, if you had a more morbid mind like Harry did, could just as easily be feet bones against the floor.
As was usual, he saw nothing but Harry made a mental note that the sounds were becoming clearer and more common every time he heard them. The tension amongst them had ratcheted up when Harry had turned and then tensed at a noise only he could hear, Liz and Fran's eyes flickering every which way, looking for a target.
They eased soon enough though when nothing jumped out at them. Harry went to turn back to the trickle of water when his phone rang. Normally, that wouldn't be a problem but with the tension that was still in the air, Liz reacted. Harry had to duck to avoid the spear she swung towards the noise, almost disembowelling him.
She did look a little sheepish when she realised it was nothing more malicious or scary than a ringing phone and scuffed one of her feet against the floor as Harry answered it, grinning at his Servant.
He was only on the phone for a short while but Fran noted that he seemed rather surprised and fairly pleased with whatever he was being told. She didn't know what was being said on the other end and all Harry was doing was agreeing with what he was hearing. Once he put the phone down, Fran asked what was going on.
"Oh, it was just one of the house elves having a good idea." He told them. "Missy, she's pretty much the elf in charge of what is going on with the business right now, has found two more elves who are willing to work with us. Now that there is six of them, they can branch out a bit more in what they can do and Missy had a bit of an idea that she wanted to discuss with me." Harry grinned.
"What was her idea?" Liz asked, looking rather curious. "And besides that, I thought house elves were really submissive."
Harry nodded his head. "Normally, they are. What's different with my elves is that they are given far more responsibility than normal and they take pride in that, the fact that I don't punish them and reward them when they deserve it also makes me more approachable to them. Missy's idea was to get into the transport business as well, that would help undercut the Malfoy's Import and Export business and is something they could easily do." Harry then began to explain the idea in full.
With the way the wizarding world was currently set up, each business was completely individual and separate from others. An apothecary has to source places to supply him with ingredients and workers to carry out all of the tasks necessary. What Missy was suggesting was that they make a company all about sourcing ingredients and other things from all over the world. They would search the world for providers and they would also look for those who wanted these supplies, kind of like being the middle man in a deal.
With the elves being able to 'pop' over large distances with their loads, they could easily transport goods from one location to another. If they set up a warehouse or something and put preservation charms on it in the form of wards then they could stockpile ingredients before buying and selling in bulk. It was an idea that Harry fully approved of and if they could get another half a dozen house elves then they could get it running smoothly and efficiently, the numbers they had right now would limit what they would be capable of.
Harry briefly wondered how purebloods usually got their elves, knowing them there was probably a shop for it. The image of what was essentially a shop for slave labour didn't sit well in Harry's mind. He knew that elves enjoyed and took pride in their work, he would never take that away from them, but there weren't many rules or regulations in place to prevent their mistreatment.
In addition to that, Harry didn't actually like the thought of being restrained at all. Like Liz, who had more than enough reasons, he didn't like being held down or bound up and he even had a rather mild form of claustrophobia. During the summer or when he was away from Hogwarts; it had never been particularly uncommon for Harry to sleep under the stars, sometimes with others joining him.
Harry then looked at the tiny trickle of water that was flowing through the cavern, it was only a few inches deep and seemed to be drying up as he watched it. He knelt down and put his fingers into the water, letting it flow between and around them. There seemed to be a slight tingle when he did that but Harry had analysed the water and knew it wasn't contaminated by anything.
He pulled Len back when she seemed about to take a drink from there. "Come on Len, something tells me that drinking this water might not be a good idea." He said to her. He then conjured a glass tumbler and cast the Aguamenti charm into it and filled it with water and gave that to her, which she drank from before licking her lips.
"Thirsty were you?" Harry asked with a small smile on his face as the human formed Len nodded her head before holding the glass out to him. Harry got the idea and filled it up again before asking Liz and Fran if they were thirsty as well. All four of them ended up with a glass in hand that Harry kept refilling as they wandered back the way they came, returning to Harry's room to sleep in preparation for the second day of the tournament.
As they were returning, Harry heard a noise and not the ones he had been hearing for a while now. These noises the others could hear as well, the sound of wet footsteps following them back up to the surface. They kept an eye out in case there had been something down there that had decided to tag along back to the surface with them but they didn't see anyone.
xxxxx
When they had gotten back to Harry's room, they all climbed into the enlarged bed to get some sleep, Liz on Harry's right and away from the wall, Fran on his left and Len in cat form curled on his pillow. Harry smiled at them all, glad that they were there with him and wondering if any match in the tournament would force him to bring them out, which was completely within the rules.
Despite not having seen anyone or anything on their way back from the lower levels, Harry did up what wards and bounded fields were on the room just in case. At least it wasn't as bad as the noises that only he could hear though, for that Harry was grateful, and as such Harry was slightly more confident that they could deal with anything that might be there..
Harry's eyes slowly closed and his breathing evened out and deepened as he fell into slumber, Len, Liz and Fran following him. As Harry only needed a half hour of sleep and the matches began at eight, they saw no reason not to get some sleep at just before five in the morning like they had done.
It was as the sun was rising a half hour later that Harry awoke and his eyes flickered open. He didn't move though as he had come face to face with something, something he was willing to bet had been the one to follow them earlier. It was female, as everything Harry encountered seemed to be, and was a pale blue colour. She was also completely naked.
Harry's eye twitched behind his blindfold, the only reason whatever it was hadn't noticed him wake up, as he took in the female whatever leaning over him. She was rather short and a little on the thin side, looking a little haggard and worn around the edges as it were. Her chest wasn't massive but, if Harry had felt like it, could probably have fit easily in his hand. Her eyes were also blue, the entire eye that was and not just the iris, they were a pale blue that completely covered her visible eyeballs without any sign of a pupil, sclera or iris. Her hair was also blue, falling over her shoulders and down to about waist height, that blue was a fair bit darker than her eyes or skin.
If they were elsewhere, like a river or something, then Harry might have thought that she was a rusalka or something, possibly a water nymph or similar being. As it stood, Harry wasn't sure what to make of her but she seemed rather fascinated by him. Deciding to break the silence, Harry spoke.
"Do I have something on my face or do you stare at everyone like that?" He asked and whatever she was, she jerked back in surprise, probably not expecting him to have been awake.
"You are Harry Potter, are you not?" She asked and Harry could quite clearly hear the remnants of a Greek accent in her voice. Curious as to whether he was right or not, he switched languages to Greek as he replied.
"I am. If you don't mind, would you care to tell me who I have the pleasure of addressing?" Harry asked and he seemed to have once again surprised the woman, or female being as it were.
"I did not expect to hear Greek ever spoken again, not since I left that land. As for a name, I have none that means anything to me so anything will do. How about Aqua? Will that suffice as a name?" She asked and Harry nodded his head.
"It will do fine, if that is what you wish to be called. Now, could you tell me how you know who I am and what you're doing here? If I have things right, you are the one that has followed us since that trickle in that cavern." Aqua nodded her head, seeming unsurprised that she had been noticed.
"I know who you are because of the whispers. It has been so long since humans interacted with us, we who once intermingled with them, and you are the gossip on everyone's lips." Seeing Harry tilt his head in confusion, Aqua explained what she meant. "I am a Water Nymph and, like the Dryads and the Fae, we have not been seen amongst humans, both those with and without the gift of magic, for a while now. There is talk of some of us coming out of where we stay in order to re-establish contact, or at least to meet you. The Unseelie, the winter court, seems to have a stronger interest in you than the summer court does and you should probably expect a few more visitors like me in times to come." She told him.
Harry scrunched his brow. "Does this have anything to do with Elestia? The spirit within what wizards call the Forbidden Forest near Hogwarts school in Scotland?" He asked and Aqua giggled.
"Yes, it does. She was the one to first contact you and word has spread from there, her and the dryads that dwell in her forest and the single Nymph that lives in the tributary to what you call the Black Lake." She said and Harry nodded. He supposed that it shouldn't be all that surprising really, if a group went into isolation then a single member contacted outside then it would certainly be gossip.
"I see." Harry replied. "If you don't mind me asking, why do you remain in that small stream? It can hardly be enough to support you." Aqua scowled at that before huffing and taking a seat on the chair next to the table. She didn't cross her legs and if Harry was a normal boy then he probably wouldn't have been able to avert his eyes from either her hips or chest but, seeing as Harry wasn't normal, it didn't matter to him and his gaze remained on her face.
" I suppose that you have noticed me speaking Greek, yes? Well, I am originally from there, I lived there several thousand years ago." She crossed her arms and Harry was hit by an image of a pouting teenage girl who wasn't happy at something. "Then along came that absolute bastard and polluted the heck out of mine and my sister's rivers while he was cleaning out all of that foul muck. Our selves are a representation of our waters and, as you can see, I am rather short and not as impressive as I could be as my little stream is drying up." Harry nodded. "Well, once mine and my sister's rivers were polluted, we both fell ill and, sadly, only I survived. My river now full of manure and the country holding naught but my memories of my sister, I left. I eventually ended up here and found a river without a spirit and, as such, commandeered it for myself. Then, along came more humans who built this stadium and my waters started to drain away, the land becoming a different shape and dispersing my waters until I only had that little trickle you came across." She told him, her tone ending up a rather sad.
Harry carefully extricated himself from the other three sleepers and, careful not to disturb them, climbed out of the bed before giving Aqua a hug. She seemed rather surprised and took a moment to return it. She felt rather damp, like she was almost dried after getting out of a shower but there was still that lingering bit of dampness left.
"I don't think I can really do much but I can see that your little stream isn't going to last more than another decade at most. I know somewhere that has a river and I don't think that there is a water spirit there, I can show you it after this tournament is up if you like." Harry said to Aqua, thinking about the river Mion that split Fuyuki City in two.
"Really? You'd do that for me?" Harry nodded his head and Aqua smiled. "Thank you but, for now, I think you'd best get yourself sorted, you do have to compete in the tournament today, don't you?"
Harry blinked for a moment then cast the Tempus charm, revealing it to now be six in the morning. The tournament started at eight today and if he wanted to check when his match was, who it was against, get some food and check his equipment then he'd best get going. He looked back to the chair after a moment and noticed that there was nothing there except for a slightly damp patch where Aqua had just been sat. Come to think of it, she hadn't told him just who had made her as ill as she had been and Harry wondered if there was anyway to get back at the guy, whoever he was.
Rousing his bedmates, Harry decided to think about it later as for now, he had the second round to face. He did not see a certain blue girl watch him from the far end of the corridor as he rushed off to get something to eat, he didn't see her smile nor did he see the amused look she sported.