Chapter 58: Here There Be Dragons

"i shoulda brought a chair or something. maybe a step ladder."

Stuck near the back of the stands, Sans was a little too short to easily see over the crowd to the goings-on in the arena. He could hear well enough, but would really rather have line-of-sight given the potential for problems.

"It is a bit hard to see," remarked Neville, standing on tiptoe for a moment as he tried to get a better view. "Do you really reckon Harry'll be alright?"

"I'm sure he will be fine," Luna said. She had a pair of knitting needles, of all things, and was slowly working on the first few inches of a blue scarf.

Sans just nodded in agreement, a bit distracted as he tried to find a better vantage point. Luckily, after a quick glance around, he found a part of the stands that he could clamber up for a bit extra height.

"I really hope— Uhm, Sans?" Neville spotted him eyeing the climbable-looking scaffolding, and it was easy enough to follow that thought process. "I really don't think that's a good idea…"

"it'll be fine, i just want a better view."

Without so much as glancing up from her yarn, Luna simply said, "It would be nicer than staring at the backs of everyone's heads and floppy hats."

"Don't encourage him, please…"

It was too late by then, of course, because Sans had already (gracelessly) clambered up. He flopped into place with a gusty exhale: it wasn't a very long climb, but he wasn't exactly built for physical stuff.

Unfortunately for the golden retriever—who, as a dog, was also unable to see over the audience—having paws instead of hands made things like climbing a touch more difficult.

Sirius glared down at his legs, miffed.

"relax, paddy paws," Sans said, still settling into his new spot. "i'm sure you can find a shortcut up here if you sniff around a bit."

The golden retriever shot a skeptical look in the direction of the two students hanging out with them, making a good point: no obvious trickery then. Though that doesn't mean he couldn't help out, just that he'd need to be a bit sneaky about it—one of the great benefits of living in a world where 'because magic' is a valid excuse.

"Do you think we could all fit up there?" Luna asked, with that middle-distance quality about her that made it hard to tell how serious she was actually being.

Sans considered that—it wasn't nearly as narrow or precarious as it had looked from below. "i think so, actually."

After finishing up another row of stitches, Luna tucked her knitting into her robe and stood up. She made the climb look pretty easy, and claimed the space to Sans's left with a satisfied nod.

"Yes," she said, pleased. "The view is quite good from here."

Neville made a noise of indeterminate distress, plainly dreading making the climb for himself. But he was a Gryffindor, and therefore only a little hesitant to set aside his nerves and climb up so long as it meant he could sit with friends. Even so, when he reached the top after his only-slightly-shaky climb, he had the rails in a white-knuckle grip.

Sirius, having found an out-of-the-way corner into which Sans set up a shortcut, curled up between them and nosed Neville's nervous hands.

"I'm fine, Paddy, just…" The boy blinked, processing, then glanced between the dog and the last place he'd seen him. "How did you get up here?"

"trade secret," Sans replied.

Sirius barked in agreement.

In the stands below, the crowd was still settling into place. Nobody seemed to take note of—or, at least, take issue with—the four of them finding a unconventional higher vantage point: everyone was far too busy chatting and making bets and eyeing the arena below.

After all, soon there'd be a dragon down there.

"Are you sure—"

"he'll be fine," Sans emphasized again, with a broad gesture toward the dragon and the castle. "the squad did some planning, harry's as prepared as he can be."

And probably more prepared than he had been last time—Harry had only thought to unlock the broom closet, Sirius was the one to pointedly take the broomstick and start dragging it in the general direction of the first task. Having his broomstick closer means having it get to him faster, after all.

On that note, Harry had been practicing the summoning charm at every possible opportunity—including some attempts with his actual broom, not just bringing over heavy textbooks and desks.

Of the two older champions, Viktor already had a good grasp of his spell: near as they could tell, anyway, given he hadn't exactly been practicing the blinding curse on anyone. As for Cassius, he… had a plan. A creative one, that didn't really require particularly difficult wand work but did need some out-of-the-box thinking. It should work like a charm.

(Pun fully intended.)

Aside from that, beyond any and all of the preparations they had made, Sans would be right there in the audience if anything went too far sideways. He may not tend to be the most proactive—though he'd been more so of late, to be frankly honest—but he wasn't just going to stand aside while somebody...

Sans closed his eye sockets, feeling his illusory lids close with them, and tried to set aside that familiar crushing guilt. During those countlessly looping days and weeks and months—he had given up on so much. But nothing he did could prevent it, and even knowing that everything would be undone... it had still hurt, finding dust on the snow.

It had still felt like failure, every single time, because he just... let it happen.

Now that well-worn guilt was touched with an ache of true loss—more permanent, more real—because his family was a dimension away and well out of reach.

For them, he was trying to do better: to be better.

It was all he could do for them, at this point. Sans had spent some time in the library, both back in Grimmauld Place and here at Hogwarts, poking about for potential leads to go home. He found nothing useful.

Zero, zilch, nada—by all accounts, it had been a one-way trip.

And honestly, it wasn't one he regretted. Compared to hanging out in a blank void for the rest of existence and beyond, taking a chance to return to any reality—even one far removed from his own—was a no-brainer.

Plus… Papyrus would not have wanted him to stay there, in the dark.

Alone.

He shook himself, realizing that the noise of the crowd had somewhat subsided while he'd been caught up in his own skull. Apparently the headmaster was getting some announcements out of the way.

Not that many people were paying that much attention to him, seeing as the first dragon was being brought into the arena.

"Each of the three tasks involve considerable danger," Dumbledore was saying, voice amplified to be heard over the crowd. Honestly, given there was a dragon being chained in the enclosure below, that seemed like a really obvious statement. "Please remain seated at all times—"

The old wizard kept going, but, again, the dragon kind of took precedence over listening to him officiate whatever nonsense needed to be done before the tournament task could actually begin.

A clutch of eggs had been arranged in the nest at the center of the rocky area, each probably about as large as his skull and similarly colored. Save for one, of course, which was a very shiny gold. The blueish-gray dragon crouched over all of the eggs protectively—fake included—and looked very ready to absolutely murder anyone or anything that came in range. Thick manacles had been clamped around her back legs.

The dragon was kind of strange to look at with his more magical senses. It definitely wasn't like looking at a fellow monster, though there were some undeniable similarities. Monsters, being made of magic, were like solid light to his paranormal perception. While the dragon had that same depth of magic about her—different from the shimmer on wizards and witches—she also had a distinctly non-monster weight of true physicality.

Just… interesting.

"Well then, I suppose that's enough of that," said Dumbledore, apparently cutting whatever he was saying short. Even from across the stadium, the somewhat mischievous twinkle in his eyes was clear.

Sans wondered if the man had actually said everything he'd wanted to say, or if he'd just finally noticed how little attention the crowd was giving him: because, again, the dragon.

"Let the tournament," the old wizard paused for dramatic effect, then threw out a stream of flashing lights with his wand, "Begin!"

One of the other tournament people stood and, with a spell to magnify his voice across the stadium, said, "First to face the task, Fleur Delacour!"

A moment later there was a shrill whistle; Sans might not have ears, but he could tell from the way Sirius folded his back that the noise had been quite uncomfortable.

And with that, the first champion strode onto the rocky field.

The dragon—a Swedish Short-Snout, if he recalled correctly—snarled a warning, fire readily crackling behind fangs. She unfurled her wings wide and low, a massive leathery shield over the nest.

Fleur drew her wand up in a graceful sweep, then directly into a swirling wave back down: as if it were a baton, and a long ribbon was trailing behind the tip.

Actually, there was a ribbon… albeit a more metaphysical one made of magic.

She stepped forward, to the side, back, and turned in a sort of dance. The dragon watched, first with a glare that threatened fire and then, slowly, in a daze: like a snake charmed.

"Oh, she's enchanting," said Luna, with her typical airy regard.

Sans eyed her from the side, wondering if that was an intentional pun. From her small smile—and knowing return look—almost definitely.

Well, it was a good pun. And certainly better than the boring running commentary from the judges' stand: all "oh, close one" this, and "careful now" that. They weren't the most in-depth observations, to be sure.

Fleur's technique actually seemed to work quite well, as she was able to cautiously dance-step her way right up to the nest. Then she reached for the golden egg, carefully picked it up, and promptly had to make a mad scramble back to the entrance or risk being charred.

Apparently the dragon had not been so entranced that she'd ignore the theft itself; even Veela-enhanced charm-enforced charisma wasn't enough to trick a dragon that far.

Still, the champion made it out in one piece, and so the audience broke into loudly exuberant cheers.

With the golden egg in one hand and her wand in the other, still breathing hard and flushed pink from the exertion, Fleur backed away to a relatively safe distance—as safe as can be managed in an arena with a dragon, at least. She had to wait for the judges to present her score.

While that was going on, the group of handlers worked to subdue the first dragon and bring in the next: the Welsh Green, based on the color of her scales. It took quite some time to swap out the eggs at the center of the arena, in no small part because both dragons took (justifiable) issue with people upending the nest.

Now the golden egg was nestled in beside a ruddy green clutch, rather than the white ones from the first round.

Which was… a little concerning.

Were those actual dragon eggs down there?

"On to our second champion," the announcer… announced, "Viktor Krum!"

And there was that sharp whistle again.

Viktor strode out into the arena, confidence in the set of his shoulders but apprehension and reluctance in his shorter-than-normal stride. The dragon growled at him lowly.

A moment of hesitance, almost apologetic, then—

He struck out with his wand, a swoop like an eye: "Conjicto!"

Sans couldn't help but cringe a little. He had seen the spell before—during practice, without a living target—and it's just not pleasant to look at: both effect-wise and even in the feel of the magic itself.

Which… well, duh—it's a spell that swells eyes shut, of course it's not going to be very nice.

The look and feel of the Conjunctivitis Curse was strikingly different from the sunshine-daisies of most of the wizardly spells he'd encountered so far, and more similar to those he'd seen at the Quidditch World Cup. A distinctly dark slant, to be sure: more blatant than the subtle twist in the memory charm, but certainly less sinister than the curses that had been tossed about that night.

But such is the way for magics intended to harm.

Blinded, the dragon reeled back with a roar of pain and surprise. Tail thrashing, she spat flames at nothing she could see. Crashing about (worryingly close to her nest), unsteady and completely disoriented, claws swiping in darkness, she—

Staggered just shy of destroying her own clutch of eggs, as a nudge of invisible blue shifted a few rocks to have her step down slightly to the left. If those were real dragon eggs down there, letting them be destroyed for entertainment would be in bad taste.

With the dragon distracted, Viktor dashed for the golden egg. Though after that, he ended up half-sliding half-falling from the rocky outcropping in his haste to get away from smashing scales.

All told, it had involved more daring-do than the first round.

Again, the champion had to wait in the arena with the dragon as the judges deliberated over scores.

The next dragon to be brought out looked rather more distinct from the previous two, with a fringe of gold spikes around her head and a much more serpentine body—basically, she looked rather like a spiny gecko-type lizard with wings.

Not to discount her ferocity or anything; this dragon looked just as pissed as the others had been, and certainly as capable of fiery destruction. Probably more so, in fact, given the name of her species.

Half coiled around her nest, the Chinese Fireball spat sparks.

"And now, our next—and youngest—champion," came the voice of the announcer, "Harry Potter!"

Sirius perked up—worried, of course, but also vaguely surprised, based on the slant of his ears. They had known that the order was determined by drawing some kind of magical lots, and naturally random stuff would be different this time around. Even so, he must have expected Harry would still end up in the last slot.

The Hungarian Horntail was inarguably the worst dragon to face, and Harry always seemed to find himself in the biggest trouble around: it was a fair guess.

But it looks like Cassius got the short stick this time.

Once again the whistle blew. Harry stepped out to the arena, froze—for just a split second—and then had to frantically dodge a scorching fireball. When he regained his feet, a little singed, he was quick to raise his wand.

"Accio Firebolt!"

And then immediately threw himself out of the way of another blast. Sans was keeping a close eye, blue magic at the ready if the kid ever needed just a bit more distance, but honestly he seemed to be doing fine.

They had snuck the broom as close as they thought they could get away with, so it only took a moment for it to finally zoom into the stadium. Harry grabbed on as it swept his way, mounted without letting it slow an inch, and was off like a shot.

"clean," Sans remarked, broomstick pun and compliment in one word.

Sirius—under the nerves—looked smug and very proud.

As soon as the kid got in the air, the match was basically decided. There were a few close brushes with fire and the rather flammable broom bristles, but nothing that got worse than smoke and maybe a few sunburn-class toastings.

Harry flew a few circles around the chained dragon, dodging fire as he scoped out an approach. Then he stooped, swooped, and snagged the egg right from under the dragon's claws.

Very nice.

The cheers from the audience were noticeably more split this time—kind of expected, given the Hogwarts divide—so there was an annoying amount of jeering mixed in with the loud whooping and hollering.

Sirius growled quietly, peeved, but there really wasn't much he could do about it. But with Luna clapping like absolute mad and Neville looking like he might just melt with relief, soon enough his canine scowl was overcome with happy tail wags.

Harry landed, golden egg cradled in one arm. It looked like he needed a moment to catch his breath; probably more from the adrenaline rush than any physical exhaustion, if Sans had to guess. The dragon handlers once more took to the arena, shield charms catching any errant fireballs.

That's three down.

One to go.

=X=X=X=

From his spot in the tent—now waiting alone, as the other champions had taken their turns—Cassius could hear the sounds of a roaring crowd, roaring fires and, well... roaring dragons. A lot of roaring, overall.

In short, it was not a comforting experience.

"I am so dead," he muttered under his breath, so quiet that he could barely hear himself over the not-so-distant sounds of confrontation.

His plan had better-than-none odds of working; meaning everything he had been able to look up either supported his theory for how the dragon would react or, at the very least, didn't deny it. He had even inquired—in a very roundabout manner—if the egg had been warded against spells: yes, but only summoning and other movement charms.

Mainly, though, he was worried about the human element. He was decent enough at transfigurations and charms, but then again he'd never tried to cast spells while in a life or death situation.

Not under his own volition, anyway.

Cassius jerked himself away from those fog-faded memories of bound obedience, not wanting to look too closely.

"So dead," he repeated.

The running dialog from the announcer was very disjointed and excited, sounding more like the rambling of an eager fan than professional commentary. Still, in the tent, it was the only way Cassius could keep track of the round. He heard the applause reach a crescendo pitch: shouting and cheering and no few undeserved insults.

That's his cue, then.

Shoving back his reservations and forcing his legs to stay steady, Cassius stood. He would make it work out, no matter what. Failure was not an option—not when there's a dragon involved.

A few minutes passed, then the whistle sounded for the fourth time.

Cassius walked swiftly to the dragon enclosure, his stride kept steady and confident by sheer stubborn refusal to accept anything less. Mentally reaffirming the plan and repeating to himself the finer details, he stepped into the arena.

It was an open space, littered with rocks and ashy scree that would threaten any hurried step. The stands were full of people, and the roar of the crowd was a near physical thing—it was so loud, and with so many pairs of eyes, watching…

But he couldn't allow that to distract him, he was already running on borrowed time.

The Hungarian Horntail stood protectively over her nest, her long tail lashing through the air in deadly arcs.

There it was, the golden egg—

He aimed, quickly, and cast with a sharp swish of his wand.

And then suddenly reality seemed to crash back down. He couldn't waste any time checking if his spell hit its mark, already jabbing his wand toward the rocks at his feet to transfigure stone into a thick shield. Mere moments later he heard the tell-tale inhalation that meant—

Fire!

Red, gold, and orange death crashed into his stone defense, splitting the rush of fire and spitting sparks in every direction.

And—Merlin's pants, he had somehow underestimated the sheer noise flames could make, crackling and roaring, filling the air with overwhelming sound and heat. Even in the relatively sheltered space behind his thick stone shield, it was already so hot he could barely think.

He could barely breathe.

Luckily, he had a plan for that particular issue.

After a twisting gesture with his wand and a quickly muttered spell, he summoned up a surprisingly sturdy bubble-head charm—not to filter out water, but heat. The air he was breathing no longer scorched going down his throat.

With the flames still pouring past him—and sweet Merlin, the dragon could keep that up for a while—Cassius couldn't check if his first spell had taken effect. He had to wait and see, for the moment.

And he had to continuously transfigure the superheated rock to hold solid, before dragonfire could melt clean through. It felt like ages before the stream of flames finally cut off, though he knew logically it could only have been around a minute or so.

He waited a few more heartbeats after: trying to listen past the crowd to the clatter of chain and the scrape of claws against stone, the dragon's rumbling breaths.

Finally, cautiously, he peeked around his sheltering rock.

It felt singularly strange to be making such an attempt at stealth with a whole audience of people watching and yelling.

The dragon had turned her angry attention on the crowd, horned tail whipping furiously against stone as she growled threats. At her feet, the golden egg was looking distinctly less golden than before—and vaguely less egg-shaped, too—which meant he had hit it with that first shot.

Unexpected, really, but certainly appreciated.

His spell had changed its appearance from a gold sheen to something that looked rather more like the feathery hide of a diricawl: a decently sized flightless bird most well known for its habits of stealing from nests. Somewhat unexpectedly, given their feather-fluff appearance, they are actually one of the few animals that eat dragons—not the adults, of course, but the eggs were fair game.

Now he just had to get the dragon to notice the new 'threat' to her nest.

"Wingardium Leviosa," he whispered, wand pointed at a fist-sized rock by his feet. It lifted silently into the air.

This is the difficult part.

(Actually, the whole plan is the difficult part.)

He checked the dragon again—still preoccupied by the crowd.

Carefully, keeping the rock low to the ground, he floated it forward with a gesture from his wand. From his spot behind the smoldering stone shield, he maneuvered the small rock across the arena as quickly as he dared.

And he mentally cursed all the idiots in the audience who had finally worked out what he was doing—or at least noticed that he was doing something. If the dragon noticed because of their energetic pointing, he would… well, he wasn't sure what he'd do.

Probably get torched by the Horntail, honestly.

It took five tense seconds, stopping and starting whenever the dragon seemed about to glance away from the crowd, but he managed to slip the rock all the way into the nest.

Cassius breathed out, slowly.

Alright.

One more spell. It wasn't one typically cast at a distance like this, but it could be done. He just had to stay focused.

"Sonorus."

Then, with a delicate gesture of his wand, he scrapped the small rock along the side of one of the dragon eggs. Artificially amplified by the charm, the rasp almost seemed to echo through the stadium.

He cut off the spells, letting the rock drop.

The dragon whipped back around to her nest, snarling, and immediately spotted the golden egg—but, of course, it wasn't golden at the moment. It looked like a gray-feathered threat to her eggs.

With a snarl, fangs flashing, the dragon struck. She reared back, furiously shaking her head back and forth, before hurling the offender from her nest with a rain of sparks. Snarling a smoke-touched growl, she spat out a few transfigured feathers.

Cassius ducked back behind the stone, breathing fast.

That… worked better than expected.

The Horntail and thrown the diricawl-disguised golden egg well clear of the nest, and, unfortunately for him, halfway around the arena from where he was crouched.

So, great.

Now he just had to get to it.

Retrieving the egg would certainly be easier without having to get it from underneath the dragon herself, but he still risked scorching if he tried to just walk across the rocks.

What he needed was a distraction.

Waving his wand at a nearby boulder that looked to be about the right size, he changed it using the same spell he had cast on the golden egg. The rock shaped up, gained the suggestion of a beak, and puffed with feathers.

He might not be skilled enough to transfigure a living diricawl, but he had learned charms to induce an object to move about on its own. That should work well enough. With another murmured spell, the diricawl-ish boulder waddled away.

Cassius waited, crouched and tense, for the sure-to-be-noticeable sign the dragon had fallen for his—

An enraged roar, and the crackle of fire.

That would be the one.

He darted out of cover, briefly risking a glance back to make sure that the Horntail was thoroughly occupied. Indeed, the dragon was quite busy breathing bursts of increasingly frustrated flame at the stone decoy.

And there was the not-so-golden egg, laying on the ground where it had fallen after smacking into the wall. Hopefully the transfiguration had absorbed any damage the egg would have otherwise sustained.

As he ran up, he quickly cast the counter spell—the feathers were replaced with gold and it shrank back to a more manageable size.

Cassius picked up the golden egg.

"And he's done it!" the announcer yelled over the crowd. "I'm not quite sure how, granted, but Mr. Warrington has gotten his egg!"

The dragon keepers were already rushing forward to subdue the enraged Horntail, the crowd was cheering, but he was just… there, standing and breathing and trying to steady his racing heart, with the golden egg in his hands.

Merlin's beard, he was still alive.

He could barely believe it.

The first judge, the headmistress of Beauxbatons, only needed a moment of consideration before she stepped forward and raised her wand. A silvery ribbon shot out, twisting for a moment, then gracefully twirled into the shape of a nine.

Then the next judge stood, and—

A shout.

A blur.

Coming his way, fast—too fast—he was barely able to process that the blur was a tail. The Horntail was fighting against the dragon keepers, too furious to be subdued by a mere dozen stunners, and her tail was—

Oh, Merlin, he was going to die here.

Then there was a shimmer, blue, and he had just enough time to raise his wand. Just enough time to start a shield spell…

But not quite enough time to finish one.

The tail slammed into him, lifting him clear off his feet and throwing him into the wall. He tasted blood, bitter copper, and everything else just seemed so distant in comparison.

His chest was nothing but a mass of pain, and red—so much red—and his arms… His wand was somewhere, he couldn't tell if he was even still holding it.

He doubted it.

Cassius tried to pull himself back up, to move out of the way—to do something, anything—but he just… he couldn't. It was too much. The attempt sent shooting pain throughout his body, blinding, and he gasped a red-touched breath.

The partial shield he'd managed had kept him in one piece, had kept him alive, but that wouldn't matter soon enough.

Fighting to keep his eyes open—just that much, please, he would not let go of that. If he could at least see, then maybe…

The tail had already swung back around, was already shooting toward him, it was too late—always, too late—its sharp horn pointed directly at his chest, and—

White, blooming into existence with a buzz of power he could feel in his bones, and he was staring up at the underside of a massive skull. With a crash, staying steady as a mountain, it took the blow meant for him.

There was shouting, he noticed, distantly.

That should concern him.

Somebody was telling him to stay awake—one of the professors, but all he could make out were dark colors and scowls. Something damp pressed gently against his chest, cool and painful.

He should keep his eyes open.

He should…

He…

Author's Note:

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or Undertale.

A chapter in which everything goes to plan…
Right up until it doesn't.

Sorry!
(This time in part for being late, and in part for ending the chapter where I have.)

In other news, at the end of May my family is going on a (very cautious, fully vaccinated) trip to visit grandparents we haven't been able to see for over a year now. As such, I won't be posting chapters for June. Except maybe the one for The Undesired Second Chance, which will either be posted in the next week or, indeed, in June: it has truly been a dragon of its own to face, but I've been wearing it down!
So, the optimistic plan is to outline a lot of stuff and maybe even get at least half a chapter ahead of what I'm posting… and the realistic plan it that I'll get a bit of a brain-writing break and hopefully come back better than ever! Win-win, really.

To everybody nearing the end of the school semester, good luck on your finals!
Give it your best!

Thanks, as always, for all of the favorites, follows, and reviews! And everyone… thank you so much for always being so understanding and supportive!

Join the Discord if you're interested! Invite code: m3CFXnC

Stay safe out there, and I'll see ya on the flipside, everyone!