Harry and I left in plenty of time to get down to Hagrid's hut, both of us hidden beneath the cloak as not to be found out. Let's just hope we don't run into Moody, since it turns out cloaks are useless around him. We were concerned that our meeting with Hagrid would make us late for my dad, but I'd set a silent alarm to warn us when we were starting to get close to the appointed time. In order to leave the castle as stealthily as possible, neither of us talked all the way down to Hagrid's hut, passing the Beauxbatons carriage before we knocked on his door. "You there Harry, Mia?"
"It's us." I whispered back loud enough for him to hear as Hagrid opened the door and allowed us to sneak inside. "What's this all about Hagrid?"
"Got summat to show yeh." Both Harry and I were slightly wary about this, mostly due to the fact that whatever it was Hagrid wanted to show us, it was making him exceedingly giddy, and that usually meant there were monsters about. Now I didn't mind monsters at all, but I had a feeling that I wouldn't like whatever this was, and I had a sneaking suspicion it was to do with the first task since Hagrid had only asked the two of us down. "Come with me, keep quiet an' keep yerself covered with that cloak. We won' take Fang, he won' like it…"
Harry tried to explain to Hagrid that we couldn't stay long since we had to be back at the castle for one, but he wasn't listening to us. He'd dressed up this evening, and the only time he put an effort into his appearance was when Madame Maxime was involved. I'd seen him often enough all rosy cheeked just thinking about her, it was actually rather sweet. Sure enough, Hagrid brought us over to the carriage, Harry and I still hidden under the cloak as our friend knocked on the door before Madame Maxime herself appeared.
"Ah, 'Agrid, it is time?" It appears Harry and I were gate-crashing a date. Grinning to myself, Harry and I ran to catch up with them as they had already taken off, Hagrid probably already completely forgetting about us. We followed the outskirts of the Forbidden Forest whilst I constantly checked my charm bracelet to see the time, the minutes steadily ticking by. I was just getting to the point of suggesting to Harry that we should head back when all of a sudden, a dull roar punctured through the velvety blackness of night. We both stopped, freezing in place. When the second roar sounded, it split through our heads and we both clamped our hands down over our ears in an attempt to try and drown it out.
Quickly pulling out my wand, I cast a spell over the both of us which protected our ears, muffling the sound somewhat until it passed, allowing me to then remove it and, with looks of alarm and trepidation, raced to catch up to Hagrid and Madame Maxime to find the source of the roars. Dragons. There were four rather unhappy dragons. Every snarl and roar was accompanied by a jet of searing flames that I could feel even from where I was standing, which personally didn't feel far enough. There were dozens of handlers for each one, desperately trying to coax them into submission as they reared and struggled to break free.
All of a sudden, I wasn't looking forward to the first task as much as I had been before. Now that I knew what I was up against, I had time to panic over it, and some of these things looked particularly nasty and could easily eat a person whole should they feel peckish enough. What did they expect us to do, slay them? I am not slaying a dragon. I didn't sign up to this tournament to kill things. Taking a deep breath, I looked over when I heard a familiar voice shouting over the torrents of fire and roars. "Keep back there, Hagrid! They can shoot fire at a range of twenty feet, you know! I've seen this Horntail do forty!" That's Charlie Weasley. Of course, there was no better dragon expert around. Actually, it made me feel a little better knowing he was nearby. How many hours had we spent discussing dragons?
This wasn't a problem, I could handle this, but what about Harry? Taking a look at him, from the light of the dragon's flames, I could see a rather horrified look on his face. Looking back, the handlers seemed to give up and performed a combined stunning spell in order to knock the dragons out so that they would at least stop struggling, and once each of them had fallen into unconsciousness, there was finally a lapse of silence, though my ears were ringing painfully. Now that dragons had stopped fighting, I could get a good look at them.
One of the first ones I could recognise was the Welsh Green since they were native to the British Isles, it was the smallest and sleekest looking of the lot and probably the safest one of them all. The Horntail, identified by Charlie, was the black scaled one with a particularly vile temper, and even I wasn't too keen on the prospect of having to face that one. There was a blue and silver one which I couldn't identify, and I was fairly certain the last one was a Chinese Fireball. Now that the dragons were all quiet, Charlie came over to Hagrid who had already started inching closer, looking tired and had a fresh burn on his arm, but otherwise he seemed fine. "Alright Hagrid?" He greeted as I brought Harry over quietly to get a better look at the dragons and to hear the others talking. "They should be okay now, we put them out with a sleeping draught on the way here, thought it might be better for them to wake up in the dark and the quiet, but like you saw, they weren't happy. Not happy at all." I'll say.
"What breeds you got here, Charlie?" Hagrid seemed to have taken a particular interest in the Horntail, which shouldn't have surprised me. Hagrid always did prefer scarier looking creatures.
"This is a Hungarian Horntail. There's a common Welsh Green over there, the smaller one, a Swedish Short-Snout, that blue grey, and a Chinese Fireball, that's the red." All of them were rather varied, I wonder if we had to defeat all of them or if we had one each. "I didn't know you were bringing her, Hagrid." Charlie said uneasily, now looking at Madame Maxime who was now taking a walk around the dragon enclosures as if just as fascinated as Hagrid. "The champions aren't supposed to know what's coming – she's bound to tell her student, isn't she?"
"Jus' thought she'd like ter see 'em."
"Really romantic date, Hagrid." I had to stifle a chuckle at that one, clamping my teeth together in order to stay quiet as Hagrid noted that there were four dragons for each of us champions and asked what we had to do with them. I'll have to remember to thank Hagrid later for all this, he's really saved our skins. "Just get past them, I think. We'll be on hand if it gets nasty, extinguishing spells at the ready. They wanted nesting mothers, I don't know why, but I tell you this. I don't envy the one who gets the Horntail. Vicious thing. It's back end's as dangerous as it's front, look." And dangerous it was. Covered in spikes, each large and long enough to easily impale either one of us as Charlie frowned. "I hope Mia doesn't get this one, I don't think I could bear to watch otherwise…though I expect she'll be thrilled. Probably try and tackle the thing bare handed if she could."
Ah Charlie, you know me so well. Just then I noticed a cluster of eggs being brought over to each of the dragons in order to be placed at their sides. So they really were all nesting mothers, which meant female dragons. They were even more fearsome than the males because they were protective of their young. I'll have to do some research on this, figure out the best way to get around a dragon whilst she was guarding her eggs, though I noticed that Hagrid was looking at them rather longingly. "I've got them counted, Hagrid." Charlie warned him before asking how Harry and I was, particularly Harry.
"Fine." Hagrid was still completely focused on the eggs.
"Just hope he's still fine after he's faced this lot. I didn't dare tell mum what he's got to do for the first task, she's already having kittens about him…" Charlie said before quoting his mother in a high pitched voice, which admittedly did sound rather like Molly Weasley. "How could they let him enter that tournament, he's much too young! I thought they were all safe, I thought there was going to be an age limit! She was in floods after the Daily Prophet article about him. 'He still cries about his parents! Oh, bless him, I never knew!'"
"Let's go." Harry murmured darkly to me as I winced. I was definitely going to wring that Skeeter woman's neck. Turning around together, Harry and I hurried back away from the dragons in order to return to the castle. I didn't dare try and talk to Harry, he was probably panicking enough as it was, even I felt a little unsettled by it all. I can talk to him about it in the morning, we'll think of something I'm sure and Hermione will help us. We'll figure it out, though Harry was clearly so wrapped up in his own thoughts that he didn't realise we were about to run into someone so I grabbed him around the stomach and quickly dragged him out of the way, clamping a hand down over his mouth in order to freeze in place as Karkaroff appeared. He looked around him sketchily, seemingly to make sure he wasn't being followed before then heading down the path that we'd just come up from, heading directly towards where the dragons were being kept.
"I guess Krum will know too by morning." I murmured after he'd gone, now letting go of Harry. "Sorry to startle you, but you were about to crash into him."
"Thanks." Tapping my charm bracelet, I saw that we were running out of time so together, Harry and I ran all the way back to the castle and to the common room, sprinting as fast as our legs would carry us all the while covered with the cloak and praying we wouldn't be late and miss my dad. Once we'd passed through the portrait of the Fat Lady, we staggered inside whilst struggling for breath and I pulled myself free from the cloak, rubbing my face tiredly. Dragons. I can't believe it. Ruddy dragons. Mum will go mental over this.
Opening my eyes I looked towards the fire, thinking to sit by it for a moment to warm up and relax when I realised someone was staring back at me. I blinked. "Harry!" Hissing sharply, I rushed forwards and immediately dropped on all fours as my face lit up to see none other than Sirius Black's head in the dying embers so I quickly stoked the fire in order to keep it alive and get a better image of him as he smiled at me.
"Hello my Mia." He said to me softly as Harry joined us, also beaming broadly.
"Sirius! How are you doing?"
"Never mind me, how are you?" He deflected, looking at the both of us as he spoke, smiling but also looking rather concerned.
"I'm…" Harry cut himself off as if he couldn't quite decide what he wanted to say. Then all at once, it just came spilling out of him. Harry had a good long rant so I sat myself down to make myself more comfortable in order to listen to him along with dad, who also remained perfectly silent until Harry had got everything off his chest. "…and now Hagrid's just shown us what's coming in the first task, and it's dragons, Sirius. I'm a goner." For a moment dad just looked at him, his eyes deeply studying Harry's face before he looked at me as if to silently ask if I had any problems I needed to unload.
"Oh no, you go ahead. I'm living the dream here, practically skipping for joy. No problems at all." I said to him jokingly, knowing that right now, Harry's needs were greater than mine.
"Dragons we can deal with, Harry, but we'll get to that in a minute, I haven't got long here…I've broken into a wizarding house to use the fire, but they could be back any time. There are things I need to warn you about." Well this can't be good. "Karkaroff. Harry, Mia, he was a Death Eater. You know what Death Eaters are, don't you?" Both of us were stunned, now gaping at my dad in astonishment as neither of us had seen that one coming. "He was caught, he was in Azkaban with me, but he got released. I'd bet everything that's why Dumbledore wanted an Auror at Hogwarts this year – to keep an eye on him. Moody caught Karkaroff, put him into Azkaban in the first place."
"No wonder Karkaroff looks like he's walking on needles every time Moody's near. That explains a lot. Why'd they release him dad?" A bright smile touched his face as he looked at me, his features now much fuller than what they had been only a few months ago. Being on the run seems to have agreed with him a whole lot better than being in Azkaban.
"He did a deal with the Ministry of Magic, he said he'd seen the error of his ways, and then he named names, he put a load of other people into Azkaban in his place…he's not very popular in there, I can tell you, and since he got out, from what I can tell, he's been teaching the Dark Arts to every student who passes through that school of his. So watch out for the Durmstrang champion as well."
"Krum is harmless enough. Spends most of his time in the library." I supplied thoughtfully as I frowned slightly, unable to see Krum as a Death Eater's protégé.
"Okay but, are you saying Karkaroff put my name in the Goblet of Fire?" Harry questioned urgently, drawing our focus back to him. "Because if he did, he's a really good actor. He seemed furious about it. He wanted to stop me competing…"
"We know he's a good actor, because he convinced the Ministry of Magic to let him go, didn't he? Now, I've been keeping an eye on the Daily Prophet…" Both of us made derisive noises of disgust at that. "…and reading between the lines of that Skeeter woman's article last month, Moody was attacked the night before he started at Hogwarts. Yes, I know she says it was another false alarm, but I don't think so, somehow." Dad said to us so I paid close attention. "I think someone tried to stop him getting to Hogwarts. I think someone knew their job would be a lot more difficult with him around, and no one's going to look into it too closely, Mad-Eye's heard intruders a bit too often, but that doesn't mean he can't spot the real thing. Moody was the best auror the Ministry ever had."
"So…what are you saying? Karkaroff's trying to kill me? But why?" Dad hesitated for a moment so we both leaned in closer, wanting him to keep going.
"I've been hearing some very strange things. The Death Eaters seem to be a bit more active than usual lately. They showed themselves at the Quidditch World Cup, didn't they? Someone set off the Dark Mark, and then – did you hear about the Ministry of Magic witch who's gone missing?" Both of us said Bertha Jorkins at the same time, having heard about her both from the Weasleys and from in the newspaper some time ago. She still hadn't been found. "Exactly. She disappeared in Albania, and that's definitely where Voldemort was rumoured to be last, and she would have known the Triwizard Tournament was coming up, wouldn't she?"
"Yeah, but it's not very likely she'd have walked straight into Voldemort, is it?" Harry asked as I frowned deeply.
"I don't know Harry, stranger things have happened."
"Listen, I knew Bertha Jorkins." Dad told us both with a grim expression. "She was at Hogwarts when I was, a few years above your dad and me, Harry, and she was an idiot. Very nosy, but no brains, none at all. It's not a good combination. I'd say she'd be very easy to lure into a trap." This did not bode well for Harry, neither of us feeling at all reassured by any of this. Again Harry asked if dad thought that Karkaroff could be acting on Voldemort's orders, but he twisted his face with uncertainty. "I don't know, I just don't know…Karkaroff doesn't strike me as the type who'd go back to Voldemort unless he knew Voldemort was powerful enough to protect him. Whoever put your name in that Goblet did it for a reason, and I can't help thinking the tournament would be a very good way to attack you and make it look like an accident."
"Looks like a really good plan from where I'm standing." Harry muttered rather hopelessly. "They'll just have to stand back and let the dragons do their stuff."
"Right, these dragons." Now focusing on the more immediate problem at hand, dad picked up the pace in order to talk quickly. "There's a way. Don't be tempted to try a stunning spell, dragons are strong and too powerfully magical to be knocked out by a single stunner. You need about half a dozen wizards at a time to overcome a dragon…but you can do it alone. There is a way, and a simple spell's all you need. Just—" But whatever dad was about to say was cut off as Harry lifted up a hand, suddenly alert and listening to something that I hadn't noticed. There were footsteps coming down the stairs.
"Go! Go! There's someone coming!" Harry hissed as dad started to pull back so I quickly whispered.
"Come see us soon dad." Then he was gone. Feeling exceedingly disappointed that we hadn't actually managed to talk about a great deal just him and me, I sat back for a moment and sighed. I didn't even bother looking to see who it was, Ron's voice was clearly recognisable as he asked what was going on, to which Harry answered in a snappy tone and they ended up arguing, and I was no longer in the mood to tolerate their ridiculous and childish war. Getting up, I muttered that I was going to bed and head upstairs on my own, deciding that I needed a good night's sleep before I could even hope to think of a good way to get around a dragon.
