24 November 2014
"Everybody ready to go?"
Harry looked up at Dad's question. "Just finishing with this," he said and returned to the task of securing his gear in the backpack Hermione would wear.
Around him, Hermione, Neville, Sirius, Weezie, Uncle Steve, Clint, Natasha, and Agent Tony made affirmative noises.
Except Sirius, who was … holding hands with Natasha? Harry frowned and looked more closely. No, not holding hands. Sirius was fastening something silvery around her wrist. Then he straightened and tapped the bracelet with his wand. Harry watched it fade from view.
"Not too tight?" Sirius asked.
Natasha flexed her wrist. "Seems fine."
Sirius looked over at Clint. "Yours?"
"Hunky-dory," Clint said with a grin.
Sirius grinned back before turning to Dad and Agent Tony. "All set."
Agent Tony offered the rope he held. "Everybody grab on. It'll take us to a spot just outside Hogsmeade, about a ten-minute walk to Hogwarts."
"Cutting it kinda close, aren't you?" Dad asked as he took hold of one end of the rope.
"Wouldn't want you to sit around being bored," Agent Tony quipped back.
Harry chuckled as he helped settle the backpack on Hermione's shoulders. He'd tried to talk her out of coming, but she refused to be dissuaded.
"If you have to participate, I have to watch," she'd said, and he hadn't even tried to argue against that position - she'd come to every one of his Quidditch games, after all. No, Quidditch wasn't the same as the first task, but her support always was.
A minute later, everyone had taken hold of the rope.
"Remember," Agent Tony said, glancing between Clint and Natasha, "hold on."
Harry felt the familiar hook behind his navel, and moments later the world righted itself and Harry found himself suddenly outdoors of a Scottish November afternoon.
"Coats," Uncle Steve said, and handed a few around.
"Warming charms," Agent Tony said, and started casting them.
Then they began the trek up the path toward Hogwarts.
Hogwarts students weren't allowed to visit Hogsmeade until third year, so Harry hadn't seen the village before. The sights of the village, whatever they may have been, were lost on him now, focused as he was on the upcoming task.
Dragons.
Nesting mother dragons.
Someday, he hoped he got the chance to slap the tournament organizers silly for that decision. It took a team of handlers to, well, handle a dragon. How could they possibly expect a single person to deal with one, even in a controlled environment like the tournament was supposed to be?
Before he knew it, he was approaching the gates of Hogwarts, where Professor McGonagall waited, her features set in an expression so stern that Harry half expected to be given detentions with Mr. Filch every night for the rest of his life.
"We were expecting you an hour ago," she said, her tone clipped.
"Yeah, well," Dad said. "We were expecting never to have to come here again. Don't always get what we want."
Harry smiled, briefly, at Neville's shocked glance. Talking back to Professor McGonagall just did not happen, but Dad's patience with the tournament and the magical world in general, really, had come to an end a while back.
"The boys have to report for the task," Dad went on. "Where do the rest of us sit?"
"In the stands, of course," McGonagall said as though that were bloody obvious. Which, Harry admitted privately, it kind of was. Then her gaze fixed on Sirius. "There's a section reserved at the south end of the pitch, nearest Gryffindor Tower. I trust you remember how to get there?"
"I was a player, not a spectator," Sirius replied. "But I'm sure I can find it."
"Off you go, then," McGonagall said. "Mr. Longbottom, Mr. Potter - come with me."
Harry started to follow her, but Hermione whirled to wrap him in her arms.
"Be careful, Harry," she whispered.
He recovered from his surprise enough to bring his arms up to hug her back. "I will," he murmured. "Just remember to unzip your backpack."
"I will." Hermione pulled back and brushed a brief, chaste kiss against his mouth. "I'll hold you to that promise, Potter."
Harry grinned. "I wouldn't expect anything else, Granger."
She laughed softly and pulled away. "I'll be cheering for you. Both of you," she added, with a firm look in Neville's direction.
"Don't be daft, Hermione," Neville responded. "There's no way you'll root for me nearly as much as you will for Harry."
"I never promised equality between you," Hermione shot back. She darted forward to buss Neville's cheek. "But do make sure you survive, will you? We've become friends these last few weeks, and I don't have so many friends that I can afford to lose one."
"I-I'll do my best, Hermione," Neville replied. "I promise."
"This way." Professor McGonagall strode away, making Harry and Neville jog a little to catch up with her.
She led them to a tent that had been erected outside the Quidditch pitch. "Wait inside with the rest of the champions."
Then she was gone. Harry exchanged a shrug with Neville, then pushed into the tent.
The other three champions turned at their entrance, but barely had time to exchange brief greetings before Ludo Bagman strode in, wearing his Wimbourne Wasps robes. Unbidden, a snippet of a Bruce Springsteen song flittered through Harry's mind - trying to recapture a little of the glory, yeah - and he had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing.
"Everyone here?" he asked, glancing around the tent. "Good-o! Time to fill you in. When the audience has assembled, I'm going to be offering you this bag-" he held up a small sack of purple silk and shook it at them -"from which you will each select a small model of the thing you're about to face! There are different - er - varieties, you see. Your task is to collect the golden egg!"
Harry nodded, once, and the other champions acknowledged the instruction, all of them looking a little green. Harry supposed he was no different, but maybe he didn't look as absolutely terrified as Neville did. Without speaking, Harry reached up to rest a hand on his shoulder.
Neville stiffened at first, but then seemed to draw strength from the gesture.
In no time at all, he heard hundreds upon hundreds of pairs of feet passing by, their owners talking excitedly, laughing and joking.
Bagman opened the neck of the purple sack and offered it to Fleur Delacour. "Ladies first."
She put a trembling hand into the sack and withdrew a tiny, perfect model of a dragon - a Welsh Green - with a number two dangling from a collar around its neck.
Her complete lack of surprise told Harry that she'd known what was coming, so he felt less bad about Dad having told him and Neville. Viktor, too, looked unsurprised. Cedric, though - Cedric's eyes had gone wide and his nostrils flared. Had Cedric not known?
Harry pushed that thought away. It wasn't his problem. His problem - or rather, a model of his problem - was waiting in the sack Bagman now offered to Viktor Krum.
Krum withdrew a model of a Chinese Fireball with the number three around its neck. Without a word, Krum sat on a wooden bench, staring at the ground.
Cedric withdrew a model of a Swedish Short-Snout, number one. His hand shook so much that he nearly dropped the model.
Harry squeezed Neville's shoulder and let his hand fall as Neville reached into the sack. He pulled out a model of a Romanian Longhorn with the number four.
Which meant…
Harry reached into the bag and pulled out a model of a Hungarian Horntail, number five. Just as he'd predicted, he'd drawn the dragon considered the most dangerous of the lot.
A whistle blew somewhere.
"That's me off, then," Bagman said cheerfully. "Good luck and all that."
Then he was gone, and the champions were alone.
Neville whooshed out a breath, the model dragon falling from his hand. "I can't - I don't know-"
"Neville." Harry grabbed his shoulders, turned him so that they faced each other. "Breathe. Like Natasha showed us. In for four, c'mon, breathe in…two, three, four. Hold, two, three, four. Out slowly, two, three, four. Hold, two, three, four. In…"
Neville was finally following his instruction, so Harry started breathing with him.
"What is this?" Krum asked.
"Keep breathing, Neville," Harry said quietly, then looked over his shoulder to see the other three champions staring - Krum and Cedric in open curiosity, and Delacour with a somewhat haughty air. "It's just a way of breathing intentionally," he said. "It helps calm you down. Try it if you like."
Then he went back to breathing in synch with Neville.
HP - IM - HP - IM - HP
Tony wasn't surprised to see Augusta Longbottom, Ted Tonks, and Andromeda Tonks waiting for them as they made their way through the stands. Nor, really, to see Thor with Jane Foster and Foster's lab assistant - Darcy Something. Seeing Crispian Paddington made him blink, as did seeing Andrea Thomas wearing casual clothes instead of her usual uniform robes.
"Surprised to see you here, Bear," Tony said.
"Why wouldn't I be here to support Harry?" Paddington asked, and Tony couldn't argue that.
"Appreciate it," Tony said. He remained standing as the others took seats so he could more easily face Andrea Thomas on the bench above his. "Any progress finding out who put the kids' names in the Goblet?"
"Yes and no," she replied. "Bagman admitted to entering Harry's name. He wanted the extra publicity, and the chance to clear some of his gambling debts."
"And Neville's?" Augusta asked from her seat next to Andrea Thomas.
"No luck with him, I'm afraid," Thomas answered gently. "The investigation is still ongoing."
"Have you arrested this Bagman person?" Tony asked.
"Not yet." Before Tony could object, she continued, "As much as Harry and Neville are bound by the obligations the Goblet created, so are the organizers. If we arrest him before the tournament is over and everyone's obligations discharged, he could lose his magic."
Tony remembered the discussion they'd had when the investigation first opened, and grimaced. "Right, I get why you're waiting."
Not that he cared if the man who'd put Harry in danger lost his magic. Still, he'd let the magicals continue their investigation without interference. For now, anyway.
"That said," Thomas continued, drawing Tony's attention back to her, "We've made sure that he can't run - or, if he does, that he can be tracked. He won't get away with this, I promise."
A whistle sounded somewhere, which Tony took as something like the lights dimming at the end of intermission, so he turned and sat on the bench, surprised to find it soft under his ass.
"Cushioning Charm," Sirius said. "No reason our arses have to go numb while we watch. I cast it for everyone who can't cast it themselves."
"Thanks," Tony said.
"Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen!" The voice thundered over the Quidditch pitch Tony had once flown around with his son. "I'm Ludo Bagman, and it's my pleasure to welcome you to the first task of the Triwizard Tournament! The champions are eager to face their challenges, so let us begin!"
A small commotion made him look toward the far end of the pitch. A team of people were wrestling a dragon - the Swedish Short-Snout, judging by its color - into place.
"Dragons?" Paddington sounded stunned, and Tony belatedly remembered he hadn't told everyone in the party what the kids would be facing. "What the bloody hell are those idiots thinking?"
"Gotta make it exciting for the audience," Steve observed, a hint of bitterness in his tone.
"And this is the less deadly version of the tournament?" Barton asked - Tony suspected the question was more for the benefit of those around them than anything else.
As though in answer to his question, Bagman's voice echoed again. "As you see, our champions will be facing dragons! Not to worry, though, they don't have to fight, just collect the golden egg the dragon guards."
Beside Tony, Sirius snorted. "As if a mother dragon won't fight to protect her eggs."
"And all they have with them is their wands? When it takes a team to handle them normally?" Augusta's voice shook, but the rest of their party had no words of comfort for her. At least Tony had remembered to tell her the task. He probably wouldn't have been able to walk out of this stadium alive if he hadn't.
"Our first champion," Bagman boomed, "is Cedric Diggory, representing Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, facing a Swedish Short-Snout!"
Tony watched the young man, technically an adult in the magical world, step onto the pitch, wand in hand. Diggory cast a spell, and a rock turned into a Labrador retriever.
"Excellent transfiguration," DiNozzo noted as the dog began to bark and run around.
"Shouldn't he turn invisible?" Barton asked.
"Wouldn't help," DiNozzo answered. "Dragons are cousins to reptiles."
"So they sense with their tongues?" Barton asked. "Or do they sense infrared, like a pit viper?"
"Depends on the dragon," Bear put in, then grimaced. "Bad luck, that."
Tony returned his full attention to the contest below and saw Diggory dodging puffs of fire. Apparently the dragon had decided he looked more tasty than the Lab.
"Oooh," Bagman's amplified voice said. "Narrow miss there, very narrow."
The confrontation wasn't over quickly enough for Tony's taste, but at least it ended successfully - even if Diggory only just got his egg, and some burns down one side of his body to go along with it.
"Well done, Mr. Diggory! Well done indeed!" Bagman declared. "Now for his scores…"
The scores didn't follow, though, and Tony looked up to see various magical representations of numbers floating in the air. A moment's mental arithmetic gave him a total of 38 points out of a possible fifty.
A glance at the magical members of his party confirmed his sense that the score was reasonably fair for what Diggory had done. A further glance at the far end of the pitch showed that the dragon handlers had removed the Swedish Short-Snout and had replaced it with a green dragon.
"Our next champion," Bagman said, his voice echoing oddly in the cool November air, "representing Beauxbatons Academy of Magic, Fleur Delacour, who will face off against a Welsh Green!"
"Why change dragons?" Foster's lab-rat asked. "Wouldn't it be more fair to use the same one each time? Or at least the same breed each time?"
"You don't want to use the same dragon each time," DiNozzo answered, twisting in his seat to face her directly, "because they're like alligators - the more you annoy them, the more vicious they get. One champion? Not much of an annoyance. Two? Maybe still not too annoyed. Three?" He shrugged. "The odds get worse each time."
"Still," Bear mused, "they could've gotten five of the same breed."
"Do they all nest at the same time?" Foster asked.
"Same season, generally," Bear answered. "Though of course for dragons native to places south of the Equator, seasons are opposite."
The crowd cheered as a young woman stepped onto the field. Even from this distance, Tony could read the determination in her face as she cast a spell.
The Welsh Green dragon … yawned. Then it curled up at one edge of its nest and lay down.
"Sleeping Charm," Sirius murmured, though Tony thought that was obvious. "Not a bad idea, all things considered."
The girl started toward the dragon, and the DiNozzo/Paddington cousins sat forward, frowning.
"Only one?" DiNozzo asked. "Arrogance or ignorance?"
"She's French," Bear replied. "Probably both."
"Why is only one bad?" Hermione asked, her voice hoarser than usual.
"The same reason special forces operatives are taught to double-tap," DiNozzo replied absently. "You want to be sure it's down."
Delacour was almost at the nest now, and reaching for her egg, when the dragon shifted in its sleep and - snored? Tony hadn't known dragons could snore, but this one did, sending a burst of flame toward the girl and catching her skirt on fire.
To her credit, Delacour simply, calmly, conjured some water from the end of her wand to extinguish the flame and retrieved her egg.
The crowd cheered almost loudly enough to drown out Bagman's, "Miss Delacour has her egg! Nice work! And now for the scores…"
Tony frowned. Thirty-six? How could she have scored less than Diggory when she wasn't injured?
He posed the question to his companions.
"Sexism?" Foster's lab-rat suggested.
"Use of a less difficult spell?" Foster asked. "Not that I know how difficult either of those spells are."
"Spectacle." Steve's tone was flat but definite. "Diggory made it more interesting for the spectators."
Tony suspected Steve was closer to the truth, but Bagman was announcing, "Our next champion, representing the Durmstrang Institute, and already the Seeker for the Bulgarian National Quidditch Team, Viktor Krum! Mr. Krum will face a Chinese Fireball."
The Fireball was the prettiest of the dragons so far, all red that shimmered gold in the dull afternoon light. Tony approved of the color scheme - even more so when he remembered that red and gold has been his son's House colors at Hogwarts. It was a majestic creature, certainly-
-who screamed as a curse hit it in the eye.
Whatever the curse was, it enraged the dragon, who started thrashing about, clearly in agony.
Krum used the dragon's distraction to dart in and snatch away the golden egg.
"Excellent use of the Conjunctivitus Curse," Bagman was saying. "It'll take the handlers a few minutes to switch to the next dragon. In the meantime, Mr. Krum's scores…"
"He's in the lead?" Foster's lab rat sounded shocked. "After he hurt the dragon for no reason? And - what?"
Her outrage brought Tony's attention back to the display of numbers. Automatically confirming her arithmetic, he frowned when he saw an explanation forming below the numbers.
Points deducted for damaging the dragon's natural eggs.
"She destroyed her own eggs?" Steve sounded sick.
Their group seemed to be the only one who had a problem with it, considering the cheers that rolled across the crowd.
Finally, the Fireball had been swapped and a Romanian Longhorn, clearly agitated, presumably because she heard the Fireball's cries of distress, settled in place at the end of the pitch.
"Our next champion, of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Neville Longbottom!" To his dubious credit, Bagman didn't treat Neville any differently than he did the other champions. "He'll be facing a Romanian Longhorn!"
Neville came onto the pitch, and Tony's heart went out to the terrified-looking kid. And yes, Neville struck him as a kid more than the others had, though they were - by his standards, anyway - still kids themselves at seventeen or eighteen. Neville at fourteen looked impossibly young, and Tony's lately-developed parental instincts had him wanting to armor up, fly down to the pitch and scoop him out of there.
"C'mon, Neville," DiNozzo murmured. "You got this."
Augusta, Tony noted, said nothing.
Neville took a slow step forward. The Longhorn eyed him balefully, and he stopped in place. Eventually, the Longhorn settled, and Neville took another couple of steps.
The sequence repeated again, and again, until Neville was far closer to the dragon than Tony would've liked, and he fought again the urge to armor up and rescue the kid. Then Neville raised his wand and cast a spell. And another. And a third.
Tony had pretty much stayed out of Neville's training, counting on DiNozzo and Barton to handle it, with the occasional assist from Sirius, so he had no idea what Neville's strategy was. From this distance, though, he thought the wand movements for each spell were the same.
"What'd he cast?" Barton asked. "Can you tell from here?"
"Cooling Charm," Sirius answered immediately. "Slower to take effect than the Sleeping Spell the French girl used, but less resistance, since he's casting on the nest, not the dragon."
"And dragons are reptilian," Foster said, as realization dawned. "It gets cold, they want to sleep."
"Exactly," DiNozzo said.
Tony frowned. "Did he just cast the same charm on himself?"
"It's a good strategy," Bear put in. "It makes it less likely that the dragon will sense his body heat and perceive him as a threat."
Neville continued approaching the dragon, casting the Cooling Charm as he did, and finally the dragon turned in its nest and curled up like a dog.
Neville cast the charm on himself once again and crept toward the nest. After a few minutes of rooting around at the edge, he came up holding a golden egg.
"I knew he could do it!" Augusta shouted as she leapt to her feet and applauded.
That made DiNozzo turn. "Did you? Then why have I spent the last month trying to build up his confidence?"
Tony shifted in his seat in time to see Augusta's face go from red to pale. "How dare you-!" she began.
"Tell the truth?" DiNozzo cut her off. "Finding the truth is my job, Madam Longbottom, and the truth about your grandson is that he's spent the last four years trying to master a wand that is a poor match for him."
"It's his father's wand," Augusta snapped. "It should be good enough for him."
"He's not his father." DiNozzo was doing a better job at holding his obvious temper than Tony ever would've done. "Or not just his father. He's got half his genes from his mother, which means that his father's wand would never be completely right for him. And, turns out, it's a very loyal wand. I doubt anyone but his father could ever use it with much success."
Augusta puffed up, and a phrase Tony had once heard came to mind: mad as a wet hen.
Tony turned away from the discussion - in public, it probably wouldn't quite reach to the level of argument - and tapped Sirius on the shoulder.
Sirius turned to him, still clapping.
"You need to stick my ass onto this bench," Tony informed him.
Sirius' hands fell to his side and he raised an eyebrow in inquiry.
"Parental instincts." Tony grimaced. "I was ready to armor up and rescue Neville. It'll be much worse with Harry."
Understanding lit Sirius' eyes. "Probably should do myself, too."
"Not in public, please," Bear muttered.