author's note: Since chapter 87 was short, and as I'm putting up a bunch of the 'fics I uploaded when I first started uploading things to my account (almost a year ago), and it's Friday, an old posting day: here. Surprise!


Chapter Eighty-Eight: Dragons Breathe Fire

The day of the Tournament dawned dim and blustery, reminding him of third year's disastrous quidditch match. He had to keep reminding himself that that was technically earlier this year. It felt lifetimes ago. Even his memories of his past life felt closer to the surface, because they were genuinely separate from his memories of this life.

The judges called them down into a tent where the quidditch pitch usually was, and Bagman instructed them to wait there.

Well, that and he told them the information that they already knew—the Task was dragons, you had to fetch a golden egg from their nests without killing the dragon or breaking any eggs well, okay, those last few things were news. As was his explanation that they'd be drawing a small model of their opponents from a velvet pouch Bagman held out for them.

Harry reached into the bag last, and was therefore unsurprised when it revealed that his dragon was the most vicious of the lot—the Hungarian Horntail. What a surprise.

The number hanging around the dragon's neck told what order they'd be competing in. Harry was last. Of course. Still, he could make productive use of that time, planning.

He clutched the sword tightly in his right hand. He tried not to look at it. It would be less helpful than foreseen, in this Task. That didn't change the fact that he was grateful to have it.

Remember, Mother…no armour.

He knew that she could hear him. Anyone else would be frustrated at this further reminder, but Mother seemed to have infinite patience. He knew that she feared for him, and was sure that it grated on her and Thor both, that there was nothing that they could do to help.

At least Mother's love would provide a sort of shield. But he had to be careful not to get hit regardless. That would rouse suspicion, and suspicion might mean that people would figure out more about the strange bond formed by her sacrifice. They might be able to find out how to take her away. Riddle would try it if no one else did.

He thought over potential strategies, but he was not the chessmaster of their group. He was flexible.

He wore his quidditch robes, although they were easier to see and follow—he wouldn't be able to hide as easily, but they provided greater range of movement. It had seemed a worthwhile strategy at the time.

Yes, that was a poor decision. Now he'd go out and get fried by a dragon whilst wearing Ironman's colours. That sounded a good way to die.

It was horrible, listening to the commentary inside the tent. Cedric went white and had to sit down on one of the chairs provided for them. He seemed uncertain as to the utility of his strategy.

"You'll do fine," Harry said. "They designed this competition for seventh years, not aurors."

"They didn't design it for fourteen-year-olds, either," Cedric said. Harry smiled, an outward façade of calm and poise, intended to reassure. "I'm not just any fourteen-year-old," he said, with a wry smile.

Cedric tried to smile in return. It was a valiant effort.

"Number Three!" called Bagman. Then, he tried to take Harry aside to give him some last minute pointers. Harry just stared at him, as if they were speaking two different languages. He couldn't take any of it in.

He tuned the commentary out by planning what he was going to do for his part. It would probably fall apart in three seconds, but it was reassuring to think that he was going in with a plan, at least.

All too soon, they were calling for number four—Harry, the only one left. Diggory had survived, but he seemed to have been scorched a bit. Still, everyone had survived. Maybe protections were a bit better than the previous tournaments. Maybe he would survive this.

Without using the other magic? He'd have to see. Everyone had put in so much work into helping him prepare. He'd just have to survive this, no matter what. No matter what he risk.

He strode out of the tent as if unconcerned with current proceedings, the current threat.

The sun seemed brighter than usual after the hours he'd spent in the tent. He had to blink several times, squinting against it. It was not yet solar noon, but the sun was approaching its zenith. Just as well; otherwise, it would most likely have been in his eyes.

He felt his resolve leave him. He marched forwards because you marched into war. He expected attack, an ambush. The wind pulled at his quidditch robes, but they were designed for aerodynamism, and the wind was not against him. It blew, in strong gusts, sideways.

The great black dragon watched him approach. There was no sense in troubling herself over one individual amongst many—until he came too close. It made a sort of sense. Besides that, she well knew the limits of her tether. But that did not stop her staring at him, unblinking. He was still out of range of her claws and teeth, when she cocked her head, sniffing the air, and spoke.

"Stop," she said, and his approach halted, from surprise more than anything else. Why had it not occurred to him, in all his planning, that dragons were the great snakes, often called overgrown lizards, not quite either, but kin. Perhaps he would have dismissed the idea, that parseltongue would help him to understand dragons.

But then, there was something else, knowledge gleaned from library research, complete with its own little bit of surreality, when he knew that it was false: some of his reference books had said that Loki had had a son, the Midgard Serpent, a great snake that encircled the Earth.

Though that be false (Loki had no children, had been too dismissive of the company of most, too bitter and jaded for love, to have relationships or children), nevertheless such rumours had to come from somewhere. An affinity with snakes, perhaps? What else would the Midgard Serpent have been, but a dragon?

The dragon that in some tales killed Thor, but that was a digression. Perhaps it made sense that he, at least, who had taken apart the process of parseltongue into its constituent parts and then woven it back together, might even be more receptive to the speech of serpentine-non-snakes. Norberta must have been too young—or something about his experiences since she had left had changed him.

Yes, in retrospect, perhaps he shouldn't have been surprised, but surprised he was, nevertheless, and he stopped, as if at the command. He reached for any knowledge of noise-suppressing charms, came up empty, assumed that the spectators and judges could hear nothing.

He needed to invent such a spell, later. For now, he'd listen to the dragon. Listening to what a giant monster had to say had to be the best course of action in most circumstances.

"There is something different about your scent. There is something about it that I don't recognise. What are you?"

That question, phrased that way, was getting old. He took a step forwards, as if he hadn't heard her, and she exhaled twin puffs of smoke from her snout. He paused, again, as if he'd just come closer to speak with her more easily. He wasn't even sure that he could, but he reached for that tapestry he had of the workings of parseltongue.

"I didn't know that dragons spoke parseltongue," he observed, left hand in his pocket, right hand poised to draw. Her gaze snapped to him, studying him as if he were a curiosity. He supposed he was.

"You speak the tongue of snakes, a diminished, degraded form of our own language. It came from us, and they diminished and degraded it. You speak pretty words for one who speaks a lesser tongue. But it is still a lesser tongue."

Such arrogance! He did seem to encounter people with familiar flaws often. Did she think that she was better than he, just because she was bigger?

"Why, thank you," he said, as if not offended in the slightest. "You put much trust in your sense of smell, for one who does not realise that one among her eggs is fake," he observed, and the eyes narrowed at him. "That is my purpose in coming here: to remove it. I mean you no harm."

The dragon snorted her disbelief. "A false egg, which you would take for your own. Too few of our young live to adulthood as it is. I will not sacrifice one."

Right, well, he was not yet giving up on the most obvious strategy, now that he knew it was there. All of his other plans had had too much action for his taste. Too much of risk.

"Can you not smell the difference, then?" he mused. "I would think that it would smell different to you. I suppose its creators thought of everything. Still, you might have noticed that it was a different colour than the others. Or that you had more eggs than you thought you remembered having yesterday."

She did not seem to have a ready answer to this. He ignored the jeers of the crowd, the question as to what was going on. Were they out for blood?

"Why would humans do such a thing?" asked the dragon, sounding slightly less sure of herself than she had been moments ago. He took a step forward, but she was still watching him. She let him take two steps forward before giving another puff of warning. But he was patient. He could outwait just about anyone. Or he'd been able to, once upon a time.

"For entertainment. Do you see all those people sitting in the stands? They are watching a competition—who can steal the false egg in the cleverest ways, without being caught or injured, without harming the real eggs or the dragon who guards them. But I did not volunteer for this Tournament. If I did not risk losing my magic for refusing to compete, I would forfeit. I am under no obligation to put on a show for them. And neither are you."

"You are asking that I step back and let you retrieve this egg without putting up any sort of fight." She snorted what he realised was a laugh. It occurred to him that she was neither as old nor as confident as she seemed, curled in an imposing—yet regal—black ball atop her eggs. She was quite stunning.

"I would fulfil my part in this 'Task', and you would be rid of a cuckoo egg," he said, taking another step forward. Her tail lashed, outside the nest. "I would prefer not to risk harm to any party involved, which includes me."

She narrowed her eyes at him, and this time tiny twin streams of flame left her nose as she exhaled. He leant to the side to avoid them, as if they'd been an oversight on her part.

"You come bearing weapons and threatening to rob my nest, unwilling to even tell me what you are! Why should I trust you?"

He shrugged, still with his left hand in his pocket. "I have told you the truth. What benefit a lie, in this situation? And I would love to share with you my entire, twisted life story, although there is little time for that. But there is another out there whom you would say 'speaks pretty words'. Even the humans he attended school with believed his well-chosen words. He keeps a pet snake, who is utterly devoted to him. Suppose you came under his thrall. I would lose the advantage of that knowledge, were you to share the answer to that question for which he, too, seeks."

She bowed her head without moving her long neck. A muted feeling, a sense of regret, washed over him, and was gone. She might have some sort of guard over her emotions, but perhaps if they were strong enough, or she wished to share them, they would still become perceptible for him.

"Give me something to call you, and I will tell you one of my names," he offered, tilting his head. "There is much power in a name; I do not make this offer lightly. And perhaps I can tell you of the difference in my scent, if you could only describe it."

She paused. "Mama called me 'Bone-Cruncher'," she said, looking away from him as if that would preserve her dignity. She inhaled deeply, and he realised that the wind had carried his scent to her ahead of him. It was a strong wind.

"You do not smell quite like anything I have smelt before…but under that, a familiar scent of burning wood and smoke. It is very faint."

He smelt like nothing she recognised? What did that mean? What could it mean, except that somehow…?

He waited for her to say he smelt of new-fallen snow, ice, winter, but she did not. Well, that was out.

"They call me Harry Potter," he said, approaching again. He refused to give ground. That that was forbidden lingered, hard-engrained, informing his actions, understood in his plans. "I once lived in a palace in a world less diverse than this one. I suppose I smell of unfamiliar things because I come of a different world. And my mother's sacrifice runs as fire through my veins. That must explain your fire and smoke. She died to save me, you know."

A flicker of silver fire gathered in his right wrist, circled down through his hand, and disappeared. He stared at it. As did the dragon.

"You are not human," she said, staring at him. "You are different from the ones who captured me. You are something else."

He stared at her through his bangs, and said nothing.

"You bear a sword," the dragon noted, with renewed suspicion. "Are you a knight? You said that you lived in a palace…."

He laughed at her, but it was not a mean-spirited laugh. She was quite young, whoever she was. Young, and uncertain, projecting false confidence. He understood that.

"Many different types of people live in palaces. Knights, yes, and lords and ladies, but also kings and queens, princes and princesses, and even those most forget: guards and servants, maids and counselors, attendants and tutors."

"Kings!" said the dragon, with much metaphorical venom. "They send men to kill dragons. Back when it was not uncommon for humans to speak our tongue, we heard the tales borne, dragons slain at the behest of the King."

He bowed his head. "Those days are gone. My father is a king. I don't think he'd have had you killed. But I am in exile, anyway. I am only the younger prince, the one who will never be king, even had I not fallen from favour. You need fear nothing from me. I bear this sword in my own defence. A prince should not say such things lightly.

"And that is a marker of my trust. You must never speak of them to anyone else."

"I will tell no one," she said, all innocent curiosity now. She stared at him with widened eyes. He remembered the crowd at his back, but was not about to let it dictate his actions.

Even if she broke this promise, the story was highly incredible. It was doubtful that someone as arrogant and sure of himself as Riddle would ever believe this—and what were the odds that their paths would cross, anyway?

Of course, Harry's entire life was a story about what happened against the odds. No bets should be made concerning him, either.

She stood, slowly unfurling great black wings. Hagrid had a point. Dragons were quite majestic.

She bent her neck down, after giving him a sharp look, and examined the eggs beneath her. One among them caught her eye.

"Gold…" she said, in a dreamy sort of voice.

"False, I am sure," he said, "A decorative finish. Even non-wizards know how to do that."

She sniffed at the egg, and then picked it up gently in her teeth. The crowd gasped at that, but Harry stood there, and waited, as if absolutely sure of the outcome of their discussion. She set the egg down before him.

"I refuse to be made a spectacle of," she said, narrowing her eyes. He smiled, and bowed, one hand over his heart.

"You have my thanks. I suppose I will receive the lowest marks of any, but I am in this to survive, and not to win."

He bent down to pick up the egg, and found that it was heavier than it looked. But he was used to carrying heavy loads. He had done all the drudgery at the Dursleys, but there was more to it, too. He knew that, now.

He turned and walked away, as if he did not even consider that she might attack. And attack, she did not.

The crowd was utterly silent. Having listened, somewhat, to the commentary of all who had preceded him, he could guess at why. To their eyes, he had walked up expectantly to the dragon, and she had handed over the egg without a fuss. He alone amongst the competitors had retrieved the egg without injury, and he alone had done it without using magic. Or at least, that was what they thought; he didn't know if quasi-parseltongue counted.

He was still obliged to go to the healer's tent to be looked over by Madam Pomfrey, despite his lack of injury. Hermione and Ron had already left the stands to seek him out by the time she was satisfied that he hadn't been harmed at all. They burst in on him soon after her pronouncement. Ron's gaze shot to Madam Pomfrey, and Harry sighed, folding his arms.

"Even Madam Pomfrey agrees I am completely unharmed. You needn't worry yourself."

Ron's response was to crush him in a hug, which he should have expected. "Perhaps that is no longer true," Harry amended. "In which case, everyone knows to blame you."

"Well done, little brother," Ron said, as if he'd expected the worst. Harry scowled.

Hermione stared at him, eyes full of tears, but sensibly refrained from adding further damage. "What did you do?" she demanded, sounding petulant at being denied the opportunity to learn more by watching Harry in action. Typical Hermione, in other words. He hoped that someday, she would learn to prioritise her friends' safety over knowledge.

"Explained the situation to the dragon. Apparently, parseltongue is a 'degraded' form of dragon-speech. Makes sense to me."

Ginny entered, then, and he was rather distracted from what might have proven an interesting discussion about language and magic, and the interaction of the two. It would probably have dragged Ancient Runes and Arithmancy, kicking and screaming, into the mix.

"Harry! You're alright!" she squealed, throwing her arms around him. He barely stumbled at the impact, but, more surprising, didn't flinch or recoil. It was because of what Ginny had been through—that they had something in common, as if she were a fellow prisoner in his cell, an ally.

She was far too close, he realised, when he'd regained his footing. Her hair was messy and windswept and tangled, and her cheeks were very red from the sun and wind, and possibly from crying. With Ginny, it was difficult to tell.

There were several long moments of indecision, in which Ginny began to tense, before he sighed, and, very gingerly, wrapped his arms around her. She might as well have been covered with thorns. Could he go back to talking to—or even fighting—a dragon, please?

Unwilling to overstep his bounds with her, as he had too often before, he counted to five, and then withdrew, holding her at arm's length.

She was still too close. He let go, before he could do something that he would likely regret when she never spoke to him again. He'd made her cry quite often enough, thank you, and he seemed determined to persist in just that, judging by a certain redness in her eyes.

"I'm fine, Ginny," he said, smiling at her. "I suppose you thought that just because Hermione didn't crush me to death, and the dragon didn't torch me, you would have to suffocate me."

"You jerk," she said. "Ooh! I thought—going in, I thought, sure, you'd killed a basilisk, and all, to—to save me—" Red flooded her cheeks, which was the only indicator that it had receded at all. "But dragons…dragons are different. Dragons breathe fire."

"That's what they're known for, yes," he said, glancing at Ron and Hermione, who looked far too smug. That confirmed it. They were spending too much time together, and Ron was rubbing off on her. He shuddered to think what the result of that might end up being.

"Ooh!" Ginny said, stomping her foot. "Just never mind! I don't know why I talk to you, sometimes, Harry Potter!"

She stormed back out of the tent, and he was very sorry to see her go. He turned a puzzled frown to Ron and Hermione.

"Alright. Now what have I done?" he asked.

Hermione facepalmed, but after that, silence reigned.

-l-

"Well, I suppose we should go see about your scoring," said Hermione, after a few minutes had passed. It shouldn't take that long for the judges to confer, should it? Probably, they'd been kept waiting for him. Let them wait.

He gave a non-committal shrug, and waved at Madam Pomfrey on his way out.

Hermione and Ron accompanied him to the judges table. They did not seem to notice Ron or Hermione, but they frowned at Harry's tardiness. He just smiled at them. Only Bagman was smiling at him, in return. But Dumbledore was twinkling behind his glasses, as if he knew all about Harry's complete indifference to the entire affair.

Bagman was the first to stand, with a conspiratorial smile at Harry that everyone should have found as suspicious as Harry, and a number eight shot into the air. "For being the only Champion not to harm any of the eggs, or be harmed, himself. I've said I thought you used rather more magic than it looked, and—"

A number four from Crouch shut him up. Bagman fake-pouted at the interruption, but took it in stride, with the cheerful enthusiasm Harry remembered from the World Cup.

Dumbledore shot him a knowing smile, as if he knew precisely what Harry had done, but ended up giving him a six. "I think you'll find that Mr. Potter used magic after all, in this task, my dear Madame Maxime—but not a very showy sort. Well thought out, Harry."

Harry shrugged. It hadn't been thought out. But he was not about to say that, either.

He didn't even blink when Karkaroff and Madame Maxime gave him zeroes, although Ron and Hermione seemed indignant.

"But Harry, that was really impressive!" she protested.

"Not much in the way of entertainment, was it?" he asked. He turned to go, and Crouch said,

"Wait a minute, there, Mr. Potter. The Champions will be given further instruction together, now that the First Task is over. You are required to be there."

The "lose your hangers-on" was implied, but not express.