Santa Paws
by Teddylonglong
Please refer to the disclaimer and warnings in chapter 1.
In case you have not read yesterday's chapter yet, please go back and read chapter 25 first :)
Just in case this was unclear: Dumbledore put a parchment with Harry's name into the goblet, but Santa Paws charmed the goblet to display his own name instead.
"What is the meaning of this?" Dumbledore enquired, looking around in apparent confusion.
"The Goblet of Fire has chosen you as the fourth champion for the Triwizard Tournament," McGonagall replied in a stern voice, her lips stretched to a thin line.
"Ah Minerva, but I am not a student anymore, and I have nothing to do with the tournament anyway," Dumbledore replied in his grandfatherly voice.
"I am afraid that a magical contract has been made between the Goblet of Fire and you, and that you can either participate or lose your magic," Barty Crouch stated in a firm voice.
"I did not put my name into the goblet," Dumbledore refused, crossly.
"Ah but you have," Harry spoke up and walked up to the head table, where he pointed his wand into the air making a memory float out of it and play out for everyone to see.
All students and teachers as well as their guests observed in apparent surprise how Dumbledore tampered with the Goblet of Fire, putting a small parchment into it, while it was still sitting inactive in the Ministry of Magic.
"I shall participate then," Dumbledore decided in defeat, as he reached into his robe pocket and popped a lemon drop into his mouth.
"Dumbledore," Crouch growled in apparent anger. "This is not the last word we've spoken about the question what you did to the Goblet of Fire, while it was supposed to be kept safe at the ministry."
Dumbledore thoughtfully stroked his beard. "I'm afraid, Barty, that I don't remember that specific occasion. As you should know best, memories can be tampered with. I can't even recall having met Harry Potter, since I left Hogwarts on the first of January."
The students unsuccessfully tried to hide their laughter at the sight of Santa Paws sitting in front of Dumbledore growling – be it at the old wizard or the quacking ducks on his pyjamas.
HP
The whole school supported Cedric as its champion, and the Hufflepuffs did their best to encourage their housemate and support him with advice and practising together.
Each Sunday morning, Harry conducted the practice of the school Quidditch team. Usually, he let the first team play against the second team, and most times, the four Quidditch captains observed their practice to advise Harry and to consider eventual exchanges between the first and the second team.
The headmistress had agreed with Madame Maxime and Viktor Krum on three dates for the Quidditch tournament between the schools. Since the Durmstrang team was still without a teacher, Viktor Krum acted as the representative for their school. The first match was going to take place in mid-November between Hogwarts and Beauxbatons, Durmstrang had to play Beauxbatons at the beginning of February, and the match Hogwarts versus Durmstrang was set for the first Sunday in May.
If Harry was afraid that he had no chance against Viktor Krum, the match against Beauxbatons was easy, and Hogwarts won the match with a lead of more than 200 points, when Harry caught the Snitch after two hours of playing.
"Hogwarts wins with 400 to 30 points," Bagman, who was refereeing the match, announced, causing the Hogwarts students to applause fervently, when everyone including the guests retreated to the Great Hall for a victory party.
HP
Just a week later, on November 24, the first task of the Triwizard Tournament took place. As the owner of Hogwarts, Harry had been informed that four dragons would be brought to the grounds, and just the previous evening, Amaterasu had telepathically informed him that she had observed Madame Maxime and Viktor Krum out on the grounds watching the dragons.
'That means that I'll have to tell Cedric,' Harry resolved and swiftly returned to Hufflepuff, where he motioned the seventh-year into his dormitory to tell him about the dragons. 'I don't know how far Dumbledore was involved in the planning and if Dumbledore knows about them, but I just don't care. He's an adult with much more experience than everyone else anyway,' he thought, when he retired to bed that evening.
For the first task, the whole school headed out onto the grounds, where Harry sat in the first row together with his friends, shaking his head at Santa Paws and Santa Star, who were running around the grounds in apparent excitement.
Cedric was the first to come out of the champions' tent, and everyone watched in amazement how he used a Transfiguration spell to change a rock into a dog to distract the dragon. With slight burns to his face, he was able to retrieve the golden egg.
Fleur cast a sleeping spell at the dragon, but received slight burns to her clothes, which did not prevent her, however, from retrieving her egg.
Viktor managed to blind his dragon and got his egg, even if not as successful as the others, as the dragon stumbled, accidentally destroying some of her real eggs.
Albus Dumbledore was the last to come out of the tent, and his dragon was the most dangerous. He cast multiple spells at the dragon along with a series of unsuccessful stunning spells. Apparently angered by the amount of magic cast against her, the dragon took into the air and towered over the old wizard. However, instead of harming the man, she went for his right hand and snapped his wand out of his hand. Taking off, she flew towards the spectators and let the wand fall outside of where Dumbledore was supposed to fight her.
Dumbledore then tried to wandlessly summon his wand back; however, Santa Paws had already snatched the wand out of the air, sensing that the Elder wand was extremely powerful, and handed it to Harry.
Giving up on his wand for the time being, Dumbledore managed to wandlessly summon the egg and end the first task.
HP
"That was fun," Harry said to Luna, who was sitting next to him.
"Yeah, especially when you got the Elder Wand from Dumbledore," Luna replied, knowingly looking at the wand in Harry's hand. "It's yours now," she informed him. "The elder wand will be taken by conquest, and since the dragon took it off him, and Santa Paws got it and gave it to you, it's yours."
'As strange as that sounds,' Harry thought, 'the wand feels very comfortable and soothing to me.' Somehow, he could feel that the wand had indeed become his own.
"Does it feel wrong in your hand?" Luna enquired, causing Harry to shake his head.
"No," he admitted, smiling. "It feels right."
Their attention became diverted, when the results were announced. Viktor received 45 points out of 100, Cedric 40, Dumbledore 40 and Fleur 35.
'At least Dumbledore is not the best so far,' Harry thought, contentedly.
HP
After the end of the first task, everyone at Hogwarts turned their attention to the upcoming Yule Ball. For many of the students, it seemed to be difficult beyond imagination to get a date.
Harry could not help laughing, when Santa Paws told him how Ronald Weasley had invited Fleur Delacour to the Yule Ball before trying Luna Lovegood.
'I've invited Luna about three minutes after McGonagall announced the Yule Ball,' he replied to the canine, grinning.
In the end, the Weasley twins got around to invite Susan and Hannah, who were absolutely thrilled at the idea of accompanying the funny twins to the ball. Neville invited Daphne and – to many people's surprise – Draco asked Hermione.
One evening, when everyone had returned to the common room after curfew, Ginny spoke up. "Earlier today, the imbecile of my brother demanded that I should accompany him to the Yule Ball as his date."
When everyone stared her in surprise, Daphne enquired, "Don't you have a date, Ginny?"
"I have; Ernest invited me," she replied, smiling at Harry's classmate. I was wondering if we could arrange something for Ron though. Maybe there's a first or second year, who wish to attend but can't if not by invitation."
"My sister would love to attend," Daphne spoke up, pensively. "The question is if she'd be willing to accompany Ronald."
"Why don't we ask her?" Harry suggested. "Dobby!"
An instant later, the eccentric elf popped up in front of him. "What can Dobby do for the Great Harry Potter, sir?" he enquired.
"Dobby, will you please go to the Slytherin first-year girls' dormitory and ask Astoria Greengrass if she'd be willing to accompany Ronald Weasley to the Yule Ball?" Harry asked the elf, who returned a delighted smile and popped away with a crack.
A few minutes later, Dobby returned with an affirmative response.
First thing in the morning, Harry spoke with Draco and informed him about the matter, instructing him to tell Ronald that he had a date but not who it was.
"We don't want to give him time to complain about it," he told his friend, who agreed immediately.
"Yes, it's better to face him with a fait accompli. He simply complains about everything," Draco replied, sighing. "Who knows what he's going to say if he has to attend with a first-year."
'He can be glad that his father got that job when he did and was able to pay his school fees,' Harry thought in annoyance at the thickest of the Weasleys who were currently at Hogwarts.
HP
The Hufflepuff forth-years decided to remain at Hogwarts until the Yule Ball and only return home afterwards, and Harry resolved to do the same. Since Severus and Regina were spending the time before Christmas on the North Pole, as was Professor Sprout, Harry did not have to fulfil his tasks as student assistant in the evenings and returned home together with Santa Paws for an hour or two every evening.
To his relief, Regina and Sirius were able to dance and taught him a few times. When Susan and Hermione asked if they were supposed to be able to dance without instructions, he simply invited them to join him during the evenings. In the end, Regina and Sirius had to teach not only Harry but the whole Hufflepuff fourth-year class plus Luna and Ginny.
The Saturday before Christmas was a Hogsmeade day, and Harry and his friends went in groups, as most of them had to purchase dress robes for the big event.
Harry and Luna decided to roam the village together in their dog Animagi forms before heading to buy their dress robes together to have matching clothes for the event.
It was difficult to say the least, however, in the end, they decided on dark blue dress robes. While Luna's had an overall pattern of dogs, which were of just a tad lighter blue than the background, the canines on Harry's robes were just a bit darker than the rest of the fabric.
"They're beautiful," Luna said, smiling, when they happily returned to Hogwarts with their hands joined together.
"That they are," Harry agreed, feeling very contented.
HP
'I wonder who Dumbledore's partner is going to be,' Harry thought, as he readied himself for the ball. 'Considering that the champions have to open the ball, he needs to attend in any case.'
When Dumbledore had been chosen for the tournament, the headmistress had made it very clear that – in contrary to everyone else – Dumbledore would not be allowed to reside at Hogwarts. Therefore, the old wizard had to travel to the school for each of the tasks as well as for the Yule Ball.
An hour later, Harry was standing in the entrance hall together with Neville and Draco. While they were waiting for the girls to finally get ready and arrive, they observed the others.
Harry almost chocked upon realising just who Dumbledore's date for the Yule Ball was, when the old wizard arrived in bright orange dress robes with Professor Trelawney hanging on his arm. The witch was wearing light green dress robes, which were a blatant discrepancy to Dumbledore's robes.
'We really need to replace Trelawney at the next opportunity,' Harry thought, having witnessed how his housemates had to make up dreams as homework for their Divination class. The thought 'thank Merlin I took Alchemy and Ancient Runes,' crossed his mind, as he observed Dumbledore and Trelawney enter the Great Hall together with the other champions.
Finally, Daphne, Hermione and Luna came down the stairs, and Harry had eyes for nothing else but Luna.
'She's absolutely beautiful,' he thought in admiration for his girlfriend.
'You have a very pretty wife,' Santa Paws thought to him.
'Imbecile,' Harry thought back, knowing that his familiar had voiced it that way simply to annoy him at the implication of having a wife at the age of fourteen. However, he nodded contentedly, when Luna was suddenly wearing a white flower woven into her hair, knowing that it was Santa Paws' work.
Finally, they were allowed entrance into the Great Hall, and everyone watched the four champions and their partners open the dance. Harry observed the dance without much interest, noticing that Santa Paws seemed outright bored. Only when the spectators suddenly let out a collective gasp, Harry looked up again. The champions were dancing a quick waltz, and when Dumbledore led his lady in a fast pace, turning her around, Trelawney apparently could not help puking all over his robes. Soon everyone was laughing, as Dumbledore carefully led Trelawney off the dancing area.
'Well done, Trelawney,' Harry thought in amusement, absentmindedly petting Santa Paws.
The remainder of the evening passed uneventfully. The students, teachers and their guests – other than Dumbledore and Trelawney, who did not make an appearance anymore during the rest of the evening – thoroughly enjoyed themselves. It was almost midnight, when Harry and Luna returned to Harry's room in the founders' quarters, where they shared a few kisses and cuddled for a while.
'Now it's time for my surprise,' Harry thought, when midnight passed and he slowly felt a comfortable tiredness pass over his body. He quickly transformed into his new Animagus form, which he had just only managed ten days ago. He was an ice phoenix with completely white wings along with just a small strand of light blue back feathers.
"Harry, you did it," Luna blurted out, staring at him, wide-eyed.
'Do you trust me to take you back to Hufflepuff in my phoenix form?' Harry thought to her, only to add, 'I've already practised flashing Sirius and Severus a couple of times.'
"Of course," Luna replied, smiling, before she readily grabbed a bunch of his back feathers and allowed him to flash her back into the Hufflepuff common room, where the few students occupying the room looked at the phoenix with combinations of amazement and surprise.
"Since when do you have a phoenix?" Hermione enquired, curiously looking from her to the phoenix.
"Since today," Luna replied, pleasantly, before she gently ruffled the phoenix' crown feathers and thought to him, 'Thanks for tonight, Harry. It was absolutely wonderful.'
'Thank you, too,' Harry thought back, before he flashed away with a small splash of ice.
HP
It was about three weeks into the New Year, when Santa Paws suddenly thought to Harry, 'Can you come out onto the grounds please? The girl from Beauxbatons is sitting next to the lake crying her eyes out.'
The thought 'do I have to save the whole world?' crossed Harry's mind; however, he quickly transformed into his phoenix form and flashed out onto the grounds, where he changed back and slowly approached the lake.
"Fleur," he addressed the French girl in a soft voice. "What's wrong?"
Fleur let out a deep sigh. "Harry, you might not know zis, but Veela are fire people and not water people. We're no use in water, but ze second task is going to take place in ze lake. I can't even swim well enough, let alone for an 'our."
"Oh Merlin," Harry replied, letting out a deep sigh. "They should have considered that with the planning." He remained thoughtful for a moment, before he suggested in a soft voice, "I could offer to take Polyjuice potion to look like you and do the task for you."
Fleur looked at him, her eyes widening in surprise. "Will zat be possible, and would you do zat for me?" she asked in apparent disbelief.
"Why not?" Harry replied, grinning. "Please give me a day to think about it, and meet me again here tomorrow at this time. All right?"
"Zank you so much, 'Arry," Fleur replied and pulled him into a light hug. "I appreciate it."
HP
As soon as he was out of Fleur's sight, Harry activated his Portkey to return to the North Pole, where he discussed the matter of the second task with Santa, Claire and Merlin.
"You can do that," Santa conceded, "the only problem is that you need to return to the shore before the hour is up, as the Polyjuice potion is going to wear off after an hour."
"Speak with Severus," Merlin advised him. "Perhaps he can adjust the Polyjuice potion to last a bit longer. Other than that practise swimming. You have the most powerful wand in existence in your possession, plus you're capable of wandless magic. So, if anyone else will be able to finish the task within an hour, you will be as well."
"How will I be able to breathe underwater for an hour though?" Harry suddenly recalled.
"There are several possibilities," Merlin informed him. "I suggest using Gillyweed though."
"Holly," Harry called his favourite elf of his home, "could you please provide some Gillyweed for me?"
HP
Back at Hogwarts, Harry only informed Severus and Luna about the matter – apart from agreeing with Fleur that they would pull through with the plan.
"Harry, you're too nice to others," Luna scolded him lightly, only to add, "but I just know that you'll do well."
During the following month, Harry read about the lake as much as he could and even asked Hogwarts for her opinion about the matter.
"Ah Harry, my opinion doesn't count anyway, but I feel very proud of you. It's a very generous thing to do for the French girl. Why don't you talk to Amaterasu and ask her to accompany you? I'm sure she'd love to assist, and if she is with you, none of the grindylows and whatever we have in the lake will dare attacking you."
Harry profusely thanked the castle, feeling very much reassured by his family's support and encouragement.
He was so engrossed in his preparations for the second task that he only barely registered the Quidditch match between Durmstrang and Beauxbatons. The match indeed was a very short one, as Viktor caught the Snitch after sixteen minutes of playing, having the match end with a score of 160 – 10 points.
'So that means that we're by far in the lead,' he thought, contentedly, and returned his attention back to the second task that was going to take place two weeks later.
HP
The day of the second task was a bright, cold spring day, and Harry retreated to the founders' quarters early, afraid that his friends would be able to sense his excitement.
Fortunately, Severus had been able to provide him with a dose of an extended Polyjuice potion, which he had developed for him. It was supposed to last for one and a half hours, which Harry appreciated very much, as it meant that he could simply have Fleur come into the founders' quarters, take the Polyjuice potion and play her part.
During the last week, he had practised together with Fleur under Luna's and Santa Paws' watchful eyes, so that he should be able to fool at least the people who did not know her very well.
When Fleur arrived, she was extremely upset. "Harry, zey took Gaby, my little sister. Will you please save 'er?" she sobbed, pulling him into a bear's hug.
Luna, Santa Paws and Dobby immediately began to take care of the distraught Veela, leading her to one of the windows, from where they could see the large screen on the grounds that had been set up for the spectators to observe the task.
"I'll do my best," Harry muttered in excitement, before he downed the Polyjuice potion and headed out onto the grounds, somehow feeling very strange wearing girl's clothes. 'I just hope everything will go well. I wouldn't want her to lose her magic if anyone found out that she cheated on the tournament. I also need to somehow try to prevent Dumbledore from winning this task.'
tbc...
Thank you so very much for the many kind reviews for the previous chapter. Please let me know what you think of this chapter and what you expect from this story. Any ideas or opinions are welcome.
Next chapter: "Cheating".