Author's Notes:
Training sessions can get old. I totally get it. New spells and such will be explained at first, then the practice, learning, training will just happen in the background. This doesn't mean Iris will become powerful in the background. It'll still take time, and you'll see the improvements outside of the background training, but you, as a reader, won't have to read through a hundred training sessions.
Chapter 4
Fantastic Beasts and the Girl Who Lived
1994, November 2, Hospital Wing.
One look at the ceiling was all it took for Iris to realize where she was. The last thing she remembered was — ah, yes — asking a basilisk for a ride and then not ducking. She had gotten herself knocked out by a low ceiling. Great. Hermione was never going to let her live this down. She didn't think she would be getting another Special Award for Services to the School for this one. No, if anything, she'd getting several lectures. She could imagine it already.
Madam Pomfrey's disbelief at her getting injured before the first task was even held, Hermione's anger at scaring her, McGonagall's admonishment for endangering herself with a low ceiling, Snape muttering about how it was unfortunate she had lived...
She took a look around. It was still daytime. Or did more than a day pass? Iris hoped it was the former, as she did not want to miss out on a single day to prepare for the first task. She lifted her blanket off of her, and swung her feet off the bed. She felt no pain in her head.
Conjuring a hair tie to tie her hair back and placing her wand back in her holster, she began making her way to the doors, and just as she expected, they burst open. Honestly, it was almost as though the castle itself knew she had gotten out of bed and informed the headmaster, Pomfrey, and McGonagall. Every single time she tried to leave the infirmary... Pomfrey most likely places some charms on the beds to inform her if there's a chance in the pressure, to tell her if a student has woken up or simply ran off.
"Would you like your middle name on the plaque?" Madam Pomfrey asked as she made her way towards Iris. When Iris only stared at her with furrowed eyebrows, she added, "The plaque that we'll be adding above one of these beds! We might as well designate one of these beds purely for you, Miss Potter. Or perhaps we'll just create a new room for you? I'll have to stock it full of all kinds of potions to keep up, of course," she muttered.
"Iris Vivienne Potter," Iris said, smiling. "Yeah, why not? I really don't get to use my middle name often enough."
"Don't take that cheek with me! The tournament hasn't even had its first task and you've already nearly gotten yourself killed! Another basilisk! Goodness me, you're an even more suicidal version of Newton."
"Nearly killed? Don't you think that's a bit of an exaggeration?"
Dumbledore looked at her. "You nearly fell a hundred feet according to Miss Granger."
Iris grimaced. "Oh."
"Yes, oh. Now, Miss Granger said something about another basilisk and a famous author?"
"Er — the basilisk, it mentioned that Newt was taking care of it before, and that it had been taken from Newt by Riddle, and stuck in the Chamber. When he — I'm assuming it's a male — when he refused to become what Riddle was asking him to, Riddle locked him up in an adjacent room in the Chamber."
Dumbledore's eyebrows had risen up throughout her explanation.
"Newton's basilisk?" he whispered to himself. Then he gave a great chuckle. "Things always seem to happen to you, don't they, Miss Potter? Newt had lost his basilisk — or as we now know, stolen — over fifty years ago. Around the time the Chamber was originally open. I'm surprised I did not even think of a possible connection. He had even been in Britain that year. How big is he now, if I may ask?"
"He was large enough to swallow me whole in one bite, that's for sure," Iris said, to the gasps of McGonagall and Pomfrey. "But not nearly as large as the basilisk from second year."
"What do you mean not nearly as large?" McGonagall asked sharply.
"I mean, the other one — the dead one — was large enough to possibly swallow Hagrid whole in one bite."
Even Dumbledore's jaw dropped a little at that statement, and Iris shrugged.
Dumbledore looked at her under raised eyebrows, "The original basilisk was —"
"Large enough for even you to stand in," said Iris. "I'm honestly clueless as to how that thing got around the halls, never mind the pipes."
"Basilisks have the ability to thin themselves out significantly," Dumbledore said once he had regained his composure. "Now, I think it's time I contact Newton. He'll be most pleased to hear of this. I imagine he'll be here within ten minutes of me contacting him, so Miss Potter, if you could make your way towards the second floor girls lavatory?" and Dumbledore stolled out of the infirmary without waiting for an answer.
Just as Dumbledore left, Hermione walked in. She had a blank expression on her face as she walked up to Iris and threw her arms around her.
"You're so stupid," she said to Iris.
Five minutes later, both Hermione and Iris made their way to Myrtle's restroom. They found Dumbledore and another old man there, bouncing on the heels of his feet.
"Ah, Miss Potter, is it?" the other old man said. Iris nodded, and the man stared at her for few moments before Dumbledore coughed and gave Newt a look Iris couldn't place. "You've found Jerry then? I absolutely can not wait to see him again," Newt continued.
Holding back a smile, Iris raised an eyebrow. "You named a basilisk Jerry?"
"Iris, you wanted to rename Hedwig to 'Ragnarok, Destroyer of Worlds,'" said Hermione.
"And I stand by that. It's a great name," said Iris.
Before Hermione could retort, Dumbledore cut in. "Ladies, this is Newton Scamander. He raised Jerry, the basilisk."
"Scamander? Now that's a great name —"
"Mr. Scamander?" Hermione perked up, looking from Iris to Newt. "Newton Scamander? I've read your book! It's brilliant! Iris, you remember? Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them?"
"The one Ron and I wrote all over?" Iris asked, and she noticed the grimace of both Newt and Hermione. "By the way, there is a colony of acromantulas in Scotland. As a matter of fact —"
Dumbledore looked at her. "Iris…"
"It's actually here, in the Forbidden Forest!" Iris said happily. "Their leader is named Aragog, and he tried to eat me," Iris finished matter-of-factly, ignoring Dumbledore's protest.
As Newt's mouth opened to say something, Dumbledore butted in. "Well, I think it's time we journey into the Chamber of Secrets, is it not?"
Iris went into the lavatory and opened up the entrance to the Chamber. The group stood at the edge of the hole, Hermione coincidentally being the nearest. Before anyone could say anything, Iris put her hand behind Hermione's back and gave a great shove. Once again, Hermione fell through the hole screaming and cursing Iris's name.
Iris turned to look at the other two. "Don't worry, she's fine. You need to slide down. Go on, I've got to go last so I can close it as I jump."
The rest followed Hermione's lead and jumped into the hole. After the last had leapt in, Iris waited a moment before calling for the stairs. She took her time walking down the pipes, and once she made it to the bottom, she faced a very upset Hermione, and a disbelieving Newt.
"You could create stairs the whole time?" asked Newt slowly.
"Yeah, why?" Iris asked. Before Hermione could explode, she added, "Oh, c'mon. You all spend all day walking up and down stairs. How many times do you get to slide down a huge pipe? I was doing you a favor."
Newt's lips twitched upwards, and Iris heard him whisper to Dumbledore, "It was definitely Potter."
Iris gave him a bemused look.
By the time the group had made it past the cave-in, Hermione had asked Newt Scamander at least two dozen questions. Iris was surprised to see that Newt didn't mind one bit. He was even offering questions of his own as a way of getting Hermione to think of the answer herself. She wouldn't have minded him as the Care of Magical Creatures professor if Hagrid wasn't already one —
She realized with a shock that she hadn't even visited Hagrid outside of his classes at all this year. Making a mental note to do so, she, along with Hermione, Dumbledore, and Newt, made their way into the Chamber. As she expected, there was a gasp when the dead basilisk was shown. Iris was still trying to counter the apparently never-ending Stinging Hex Hermione had used on her. Neither of the adults seemed to offer any help. Newt only had eyes for Jerry, who was laying uptop the dead basilisk proudly, as though he was the one who had slain it.
"Newt! Newt, you came!" the basilisk hissed excitedly as it slithered down from the top of the corpse and to Newt. It began licking Newt up and down.
"I did, Jerry. Oh, it is good to see you!" Newt said happily.
Iris looked back and forth between the two before asking, "Er — you know Parseltongue?"
"Know it?" Newt said. "I can understand most of it, yes, but I can't speak it. I raised Jerry to understand English, so we have no issue communicating."
Iris nodded, and walked up to the state of Slytherin hissing loudly, "Salazar Slytherin, allow me access to the rooms beyond. Let down a ladder, bend down, do something. Please?"
And then, Salazar's tongue began exiting the mouth and lowering itself. After half a minute, the tongue had extended itself to the floor. Ignoring the protests of the other three, Iris stepped onto the tongue and hissed, "Bring me up. Please."
The tongue lifted with a jolt, and Iris felt a pair of hands grasp her shoulders. Looking over, she saw that Hermione had hopped on.
Before she could stop herself, Iris whispered to Hermione, "Like having a useful tongue below your hips?"
Hermione's eyes widened and her jaw dropped. "Iris! Did you — you did not — oh my god." Hermione's cheeks were gaining color. "How can you be so shameless?"
Without missing a beat, Iris said, "Why, would you like me to teach you?"
Hermione looked as if she was seriously considering pushing Iris off the rising tongue. Her eyes kept darting from Iris to the floor of the Chamber. Iris laughed softly, seeing Hermione's beet red face. She might not want to talk about it, at least not now, but she sure wasn't going to give a chance to tease Hermione.
When they made it up to the top of the statue, they stepped onto the side of the tongue inside the mouth, and Iris hissed, "Go back down and bring anyone who wishes to come, please." Switching back to English, she said, "It's making me say 'please' for all the commands."
"Salazar had manners then."
"You know he'd want you dead, right?"
"Of course he wouldn't, he... he'd just want me out of Hogwarts is all."
By the time Dumbledore had made it up to the open mouth, Iris and Hermione were exploring the room the other basilisk had come from. It was empty. The room behind the other side, however, was not. It led to a hallway, which had two separate doors on each wall. Behind the first one they opened was the bedroom to Salazar Slytherin. They figured it was his bedroom as there was a portrait of the man himself hanging above the fireplace. Iris took down the portrait and carried it with her outside after they had searched the rest of the bedroom. They found Dumbledore walking into the hallway.
"Headmaster, sir, I believe we've just found Salazar Slytherin's portrait. He's sleeping, though," Iris said as she tossed the portrait to Dumbledore, then turned on her heel to explore the rest of the rooms. Hermione gave an exasperated look to Iris's back, an apologetic look to the headmaster — then ran after Iris, curious about what the other rooms held.
One was a mostly empty room with dummies on one end — a dueling chamber. The next was a potions laboratory, which looked exactly like what Iris and Hermione needed to start brewing their Animagus potions. The last room was a library the size of their dormroom. Hermione looked as though she was about to begin drooling. Before she could come to her senses and begin touching books, Dumbledore walked in.
"Do not touch a thing, Miss Granger. These are Salazar Slytherin's books. It's very likely at least a few books are cursed. Remarkable, though," Dumbledore said to himself, looking around. "I think you two deserve two Special Awards to Services to the School for this quite extraordinary discovery. All of this history, locked up all these years. A fine addition to the library, I should say. After these are organized and sent up to the library, I think you, Miss Granger, should have the first — as they say — crack at it, yes? Truly marvelous though. Salazar Slytherin's own library, hidden right beneath the school this entire time, and his portrait too..."
Hermione nodded vigorously while Iris was trying not to laugh at the fact that the Chamber of Secrets, made by a man who left the school out of disgust, was the reason for both of her special awards.
Dumbledore Transfigured a nearby chair into a trunk and then placed what he said was an Undetectable Extension Charm on it. Iris, Hermione, and Dumbledore levitated all of the books into the magically enhanced trunk. When they were nearly finished, but not quite, Iris began to walk around the walls and whisper phrases in Parseltongue, hoping to find another secret. She found none in any of the rooms, and she was just about to give up when she noticed something. At the end of the hall — opposite to the entrance to the hall — the wall looked strangely like a sealed up passageway.
She walked up to it and said in parseltongue, "Open, reveal your secrets," hoping that either word or phrase would work. It did. The wall's bricks began to work like the entrance to Diagon Alley, each brick slowly pushing itself back and to the side. A voice from behind her caused her to jump in fright.
"Excellent work, my dear girl — so sorry to frighten you. Let us hope this leads us back to the main castle," Dumbledore said, levitating the trunk.
"Uh — Professor Dumbledore? Newt?"
"I'm sure they'll do just fine," Dumbledore said, waving a hand in a dismissive manner.
"But…"
"They've a basilisk they need to tend to. Once they're done, they'll send Jerry up the pipes and he'll command the stairs to show themselves."
"How do you know that, sir?" Iris asked.
"I don't, but it seems like the most logical solution. I'm sure they'll figure it out," Dumbledore said, smiling down at Iris.
Iris wasn't too confident in her nodding along, but only said, "Sir, would it be okay if we used the potions lab down here? Hermione and I are going to be brewing some potions that'll need to be let alone for a few hours, and we'd can't use Myrtle's bathroom anymore."
"I don't see why not," Dumbledore said. "Anymore?"
"We brewed Polyjuice Potion in our second — well, Hermione brewed polyjuice in our second year. But every since everyone somehow found out where the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets is, more people use that bathroom," Iris said.
"Polyjuice, you say?" Dumbledore said, smiling at Hermione, who had gone slightly pale. "Quite complicated for a second year."
"And you'd be completely right," Iris said. "The whole plot was quite complicated — knocking students out, breaking into other common rooms, and —"
"Iris!" Hermione whispered.
"And questioning young Draco Malfoy on if he opened the Chamber of Secrets?" said Dumbledore, his eyes twinkling madly.
Iris and Hermione stared at him, their mouths slightly open from surprise. Hermione began stammering, and Iris began wondering just how much the headmaster really knew. Surely not everything? Because if he did, Girl-Who-Lived or not, she was sure she would have been expelled by now. She understood by now that Dumbledore saw her as more than just a student. What more it was, Iris wasn't sure — a granddaughter? A future apprentice? Dumbledore had told her in her first year — after she had asked why Voldemort was after her — that he wanted her to have a childhood.
The way he said it, though… It was almost as if he was expecting her future to — there was no other way to put it — suck. Given everything that had happened in the past few months, Iris began to wonder. Had Dumbledore predicted that strange events would happen in the years to come in her first year? Disappearances, dark marks, sinister plots, all predicted by Dumbledore years in advance?
Perhaps.
Did he expect even more to happen? It was the only explanation for his leniency in letting her break the rules. He knew of the 'Polyjuice Potion Plot', or 'Triple P' as they called it whenever they were in public that year.
Then there was the sneaking into Hogsmeade the last two years, and it wasn't on Hogsmeade weekends; she had gotten her permission slip signed by telling Vernon that she'd come back to Privet Drive on Hogsmeade weekends otherwise; Vernon didn't bother to actually read the permission slip; he signed it immediately.
There was, of course, many curfew breaking nights too — he had even nodded to her as he passed her the night before. He didn't even give her a light slap on the wrist. He nodded to her, even smiled slightly! It was almost as if he wanted her to do it, to do what she wanted, rules be damned.
If Hermione could hear her mind, Iris was sure she'd be lectured. It was a dangerous line to walk after all. It was very easy to just accept that Dumbledore wanted her to break the rules. It would be much easier to actually break them and do whatever she wanted — and eventually, she would have crossed that line far more than she should have.
"Iris? Could you open the door?" Dumbledore said.
She looked in front of her and saw a wall, and the stairs she had just climbed behind her while in thought. She commanded the door to open and walked through to find herself before a hall in the dungeons. She remembered walking through the hall once before in her first year, but it had led to an dead end — a blank wall she now knew held a passageway down to the Chamber of Secrets. On the wall just next to the exit was an engraving.
Salazar simply spoke sleep, and the snakewood sought to slumber, so should Slytherin's successor seek to slither deep, they must get to the core of this stumper.
"Er — sir?" Iris asked uncertainly.
"I didn't think Salazar Slytherin was one for riddles," Dumbledore said thoughtfully. "Come, let us go."
Once everyone was out, she commanded the door to close and waited for it to do so. Once it was fully closed, she hissed, "Open."
Nothing happened.
"Open," she tried again. "Open back up. I command you to open. Reveal your secrets. Allow me passage. Oh Slytherin, the most strongest of the four founders, open." But the door did not open. "Please?" Iris hissed in desperation. She was hoping for an easy way back to that part of the Chamber of Secrets.
But still, the door remained close.
"In Parseltongue, I believe you must say, basilisk horn," Dumbledore said.
Iris frowned, but did so, and the door opened up again. Iris looked at Dumbledore in bemusement. "How?"
"The wood of Salazar's wand was snakewood, and the core was basilisk horn. The alliteration is there to tell you to say it in Parseltongue, to hiss it."
"I hope you know you just gave me the key to using the Chamber of Secrets for my own shenanigans," Iris said, and Dumbledore smiled at her. "Hermione, do you have the potions book? We might as well start brewing today."
Hermione nodded and pulled out the Advanced Potion-Making book.
"An N.E.W.T. level Potions book?" Dumbledore questioned.
"Yep. And no, you don't want to know what we're doing with this one either. It doesn't involve rule breaking. Or law breaking — I think?" Iris said, rubbing her chin thoughtfully. "It might be dangerous though. Not because the potions might blow up in our faces — well, that too — but because… actually, don't worry about it. Good day! Close!" Iris hissed the last word, and pulled Hermione into the passageway with her as it began to close. Hermione stared at the door after it closed fully before giving a heavy sigh and following Iris down after.
"What is it?" Hermione asked after Iris kept looking at her.
"Nothing. You just didn't get upset at me for pulling that stunt. I was wondering if I had finally completely corrupted you."
Hermione narrowed her eyes and asked in a casual tone, "So, did you bring the potions ingredients we'll need?"
Iris stopped.
"Don't worry, I figured you'd pull something like this so I made sure to get them before we even entered the Chamber the first time. I didn't even have to steal anything from Professor Snape," said Hermione. "The potion ingredients were surprisingly common with the exception of one or two. The Animagus Unlocking Potion can be brewed within an hour — I'm doing that one, it's harder to brew than the other one — and the Essence of Nature Potion will take around two hours to brew once we've actually done it a few times. I imagine it'll take three hours or so this first time around. It's pretty simple though. It almost boils down to tossing a lot of natural ingredients into a cauldron and letting it stew. And when I say a lot, I mean a lot, Iris. I filled several jars with ingredients for just the Essence of Nature Potion, but we'll only have enough to brew maybe two for each of us. We'll need more ingredients afterwards."
Iris nodded along throughout Hermione's explanation. She wasn't too worried, nor was she insulted at Hermione brewing the hardest potion. Hermione was without doubt the much better brewer. Iris wasn't as terrible as Snape made her out to be though. Brewing on her own, she was at least average, and she guessed that if she actually cared for the subject, she'd be above average or more. It was only when she had Snape constantly insulting her on top of the Slytherins attempting to ruin her brews that Iris became below average.
Iris and Hermione made their way into Salazar Slytherin's lab and Hermione began to unpack everything she had in her bag. A few minutes later, they had cauldrons set up and the Potions book opened. Iris copied all the instructions to create the Essence of Nature onto another piece of parchment. Writing the instructions down helped her memorize the steps — or so Hermione said.
Iris muttered the ingredients as she wrote them down. "Root of aconite, aconite fluid, root of dandelion, syrup of hellebore, powdered moonstone, powdered porcupine quills, murtlap tentacle, ashwinder egg, unicorn hair, armadillo bile — where the hell did Hermione get unicorn hair?" And so on until Iris had over three dozen ingredients written out. She then wrote out the rest of the steps and began working. She organized the ingredients into alphabetical order by their names, heated up the cauldron after filling it halfway with water, and began tossing the ingredients in — stirring whenever the steps told her to.
After thirty minutes, Iris got to the step which told her to let the potion stew for an hour and a half. Despite not being even halfway done with the potion, Iris was satisfied that the brewing potion was currently the perfect shade of pink. Turning to look at Hermione's three cauldrons, she saw Hermione's bushier-than-usual hair — and realized her own hair had become very wavy and curly in the fumes. Not wanting to even bother, she pointed her wand at her hair and muttered, "Capillum" while somewhat mentally picturing her hair in a bun. Her hair rose and began to tie itself near the top of Iris's head — a terrible, messy bun, however, as Iris was hardly concentrating.
So much had happened in the past two days that she couldn't bring herself to care about the small things anymore. Feeling sticky and a bit sweaty from the fumes, she took off her outer robe and Transfigured her outfit into something a little looser. It was a lazy look, but she didn't care. Her Transfiguration wasn't good enough to be permanent as of yet anyway and not as many boys would ask her for a date whenever she wore joggers and a jumper. Whether it was from the fact she looked more like the criminal the Dursley's made her out to be or because they thought the muggle clothing was strange, Iris didn't know — but again, she didn't care.
It took another thirty minutes for Hermione to finish her potions. She began to slowly tip the cauldron's contents into three large bottles — and before Hermione could even put a cap on the first potion bottle, Iris took one and downed it all.
"And what if that wasn't complete, Iris? What if at its current state, it was poison?"
"Then whoops? It's not though. I trust you. And the final color is supposed to be a light blue and as you can see, it's definitely blue...ish," Iris finished uncertainly. Shrugging, she cleaned the bottle and placed it back on a rack. "Well, drink yours. We'll give Ron his later. C'mon, let's go visit Hagrid. We haven't at all this year — outside his classes, I mean. I feel bad," Iris said, and she meant it. Hagrid might have been a untrustworthy with the secrets and a little careless when it came to dangerous creatures, but he always meant well.
They were long past due for a visit.
1994, November 2, Hagrid's Hut.
Iris, Ron, and Hermione were waiting outside of Hagrid's hut. All three had taken the Animagus Unlocking Potion and were now waiting for the other potions to finish brewing. Ron had been informed of the Chamber of Secrets, and while he didn't seem too keen on visiting the personal rooms of Slytherin himself, he was still interested in seeing it.
After their visit to Hagrid, Iris would have to work on the potion for another two hours — not something she was looking forward to.
The door swung open.
"'Bout time! Any longer 'n I woulda assumed you lot had forgo'en where I lived!" Hagrid said, staring down at the three of them.
"I'm sorry, Hagrid," Iris said earnestly. "We've been incredibly busy. Moody has been making us go through our first two years in Defense in two months — it's all done now of course, but it was exhausting. And then there was the tournament stuff. I'll make it up to you by visiting every day if I can."
Hagrid beamed down at her. "Oh, you know I was jus' kiddin' Iris. Now, I don' wan' to see you here every day, yer hear? Focus on the tournamen' because… well… you'll need it, Iris. But don' worry, I've got a part in it, n' trus' me, you can do it. I know yeh can. Say, Iris, speakin' of, have you — er — got tha' flute I gave you yer firs' year here?" Hagrid said, shifting uncomfortably as he sat down in his chair.
Iris tilted her head at Hagrid at the sudden change in topic. "Uh, yeah, I do. It's in my trunk at school."
"Good, good," Hagrid said, not looking Iris in the eye. "It migh' be a good idea to bring it to the firs' task, me flute. Give yer some… yer know… motivation..."
"Hagrid, what are you going on about?" asked Ron.
"Fluffy…" Iris whispered in realization. Hagrid's determination to look everywhere but in Iris's direction confirmed her guess. "Fluffy's going to be involved in the first task, isn't he?"
"Now now, I didn' say that!" Hagrid said in a panicked tone.
"But you implied it," said Ron.
"Hagrid…" Hermione started. "There's no way it would just be Fluffy. I know you'd never give him up to duel the champions to the death, and you only have one three-headed dog —"
"Or so I hope," interrupted Iris.
"So that means if the first champion killed Fluffy, the rest wouldn't have anything. That means the task involves getting past Fluffy. But that in itself isn't much excitement on its own," Hermione said.
Hagrid was sweating profusely. "Jus' bring yer flute, tha's all I'm sayin' 'n nothin' more —"
"I'm not going to have to battle a three-headed dog and a dragon, am I?" Iris asked.
Hagrid suddenly jumped up, wide eyed, and quickly walked out of the hut without responding. Iris stared at Hagrid's back, attempting to keep her breathing even.
After a moment, she spoke, "Hermione, I need to master the Summoning Charm."
Hermione frowned at the sudden turn of conversation. "Why?"
"Because I'm not battling a damn three-headed dog named Fluffy, that's why. I can only take a few things in the first task so I'll need to find a way to get the flute into wherever I am. One of you can have it on you when I go up against Fluffy. Hagrid all but confirmed that dragons are involved, so we need to start on the shield charms immediately — and anything else that could help me —"
"A Shield Charm?" asked Ron. "Against a dragon? Bloody hell, Iris, not even Charlie can throw up a strong enough shield to stop dragonfire."
Iris stared at him. "It's not impossible. I already read about one capable of stopping dragonfire, Praesidio Incaendium."
Hermione frowned again. "I haven't heard of that spell, but we'll take a look."
Ron sighed. "Your life is far too complicated, Iris. Good fun, though."
The three got up and walked out of Hagrid's hut. Out of the corners of their eyes, they saw Hagrid carrying something long and a blast of flames. Iris snapped her head to it, and flicked her wrist. Her wand came speeding out of her holster — and straight into the dirt. She hadn't been able to catch it in time, but she wasn't paying attention to that. For a second, she was certain that the first task had just started and she would have to defend herself against a battle-axe wielding Hagrid on a raging dragon. Instead, it seemed that Hagrid was tending to something — it looked like a mix between a scorpion and a dog sized crab. Fire streamed from the thing's scorpion-like tail as Hagrid tried to guide them into a corner with a long metal pole.
"What the fuck, Hagrid?" Iris muttered under her breath as she turned to walk away.
The three made their way back into the castle and down to the Chamber of Secrets — specifically the potions lab. Iris finished up the Essence of Nature potions with the help of Hermione. It took them another thirty minutes to complete the potions and bottle them up. Hermione noted that they'd be able to do the first part within fifteen minutes soon, let it simmer for an hour and a half, and then return to finish it in another fifteen minutes.
Then they decided to start Iris's training. They started with the Summoning Charm again, like Iris had asked. To keep the repetitiveness down, Iris began practicing the Dragonfire Shield Charm, or Praesidio Incaendium. Hermione went to get more ingredients to brew more potions while Iris continued her spell casting.
When Ron became bored, he and Iris played a game of chess, where Iris only used the Banishing and Summoning Charm to move her pieces. By the end of the game, she was able to Summon any piece however far she wanted — but she still seemed to sometimes accidentally blow the entire board up with her Banishing Charms. By the end of the night, Iris could Summon the flute to her easily. The heavier objects such as chairs or heavy cauldrons, however, were tougher. Iris insisted she only needed the flute, but Hermione refused to listen — Iris would be mastering the Summoning Charm and that was that.
She made no progress, however, on the Dragonfire Shield Charm. No matter what she did, she was simply unable to produce any shield larger than the size of a galleon — and Iris seriously doubted a shield no larger than her hand would stop dragonfire from turning her into ash. Then again, she didn't know much about dragons. Maybe their fire came out as thin as quill? Iris told herself this to calm herself enough to be able to fall asleep once the trio was done for the day.
The next week hardly differed. The three would go to class, go down to Chamber to start brewing, visit Hagrid while the potions simmered, come back and finish the potions, then help Iris train. Ron only came a few times, but Hermione stuck with Iris the entire time, something Iris was thankful for.
Iris and Hermione had even redecorated parts of the Chamber to give it a bit more color and life. No longer were certain rooms a depressing grey and green; it now had red and gold banners hanging on the walls over the green, and Hermione had charmed the furniture to livelier colors. By the time they were done, the living room almost looked like a larger Gryffindor common room, and the potions lab was no longer incredibly dirty, damp, and depressing.
During the week, Iris had learned that the rest of the school was rather confused as to what they should feel when it came to her. The Slytherins were worse than ever thanks to Iris being a champion. She had to start walking through the halls with her wand out or under her Invisibility Cloak. What she had done to Millicent Bulstrode didn't help matters.. Iris did feel a bit guilty over the things she had said after she had cooled down, but she didn't see herself apologizing anytime soon. Millicent had started it, and while Iris didn't appreciate being a bit of a bully, she wouldn't have done those things otherwise.
Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw seemed unsure as to how to treat Iris. Most of them called her a cheat, but very few of them seemed to take it hard over the fact that she was overshadowing the other Hogwarts champion. Gryffindor stood by her for the most part. A few still muttered under their breath when she was near.
As for the professors, not much changed — although, Iris felt that Snape had become crueler than ever. After a small and quick duel between Iris and Draco Malfoy in a corridor, Hermione ended up with teeth that ran down to her chest. Snape had said there was no difference. Iris had to stop herself from performing the Cruciatus Curse right then and there.
She and Snape constantly insulted and humiliated each other, but it had always felt like some silent mutual agreement; Snape would try his hardest to humiliate and insult Iris, and Iris would do the same. To see him say something so horrible to Hermione had made Iris furious, and every time Iris saw Snape in the halls from that point on, she would either curse him in numerous ways. Some students began to wonder why they'd hear someone screaming "POTTER!" every now and then. Iris claimed innocence throughout it all and would even say she was nowhere near the incident and could therefore not hear Snape yelling about detentions.
It was on the eighth of November, in Potions, that Iris thought she had gone too far in her cursing of Snape. He had finally snapped and was ready to, at last, kill her.
He had been angering Iris all class. He insulted her and her father nearly every other minute. The Slytherins were once again attempting to ruin her potion, and Snape didn't bother doing anything about it. He only looked on with a small smirk every time he looked up and caught them doing it.
Eventually, the Slytherins realized that Snape didn't care, and so they began messing with Iris even more. When her potion finally became ruined, thanks to all the thrown ingredients, Snape rounded on her to insult her intelligence yet again. Iris attempted to control her breathing, but it wasn't working.
Just as Iris was about to snap at Malfoy for chucking something at the back of her head —
"Potter, you'll be testing out Longbottom's antidote at the end of class," Snape sneered. "If he brewed it correctly, you'll have no problem."
Iris knew that Neville had definitely not brewed it correctly. She had seen the Slytherins tossing ingredients into his cauldron. She looked back at Snape with an open mouth, pleading with her eyes that she understood, that she wouldn't mess with him anymore, that she really was an arrogant worthless disappointment — anything to make him back off. She really wouldn't have put it past him to forcefully shove the poison down her throat if she outright refused. Maybe she was being a bit dramatic, but it didn't matter — she was saved by Colin Creevy.
The wand-weighing ceremony. That was what had saved her. How absurd. They were going to have a ceremony where they weighed her wand? She had to be wrong — despite all of the wizarding world's oddities, surely this wouldn't be what she thought it was.
It wasn't. Not even remotely. Iris felt stupid as she was told just what the 'ceremony' was. She did, however, feel justified in being as late as she possibly could have been. Dumbledore, Ollivander, Bagman, Crouch, Madame Maxime, Karkaroff, the other three champions, and a few others she didn't recognize were there as Iris stepped into the classroom. She ignored Karkaroff complaining about her tardiness. Ollivander went through the wands of the other three champions — Iris barely paid attention, she was still angry about Snape's class — and then he came to her.
"Ah, Miss Potter… How I remember your wand. Most curious, it was, was it not?" Ollivander asked, raising his bushy eyebrows and smiling mysteriously.
"No, it was not curious," Iris said, a warning in her voice.
"Oh, but it was. For the phoenix who gave you your feather also gave —"
"Also gave my ancestor one, yeah — whatever. Can we get this farce over with so I can go and do something a little more fulfilling than bending over backwards for this disaster of a tournament?" Iris said irritably. Why the hell was Ollivander trying to tell people of yet another connection of hers to Voldemort? She had half a mind to snap her wand right in front of Ollivander and shove the pieces up his —
"Miss Potter..." Dumbledore said.
"Indeed, Iris?" came a voice from behind her, and Iris turned. Through all the indignant and shocked faces, she saw a blonde with a ridiculous hairstyle in a yellow shirt and white skirt, who was smiling at her sweetly. She wore enough yellow to put Dumbledore to shame. Her nametag said, 'Rita Skeeter,' and Iris remembered what Hermione had said about her articles. She had written the one about Arthur Weasley, and it was cruel beyond words. Iris's temper rose at the thought of the article and only continued rising when she said, "Do you mind if you expand on what you mean — perhaps over here, in the cupboard?"
Iris raised an eyebrow.
Cupboard? Fuck that. If she had it her way, she'd never set foot in another cupboard again.
"Sorry, I like my girls less than twice my age, but I'm sure Miss Delacour here will take you up on your offer," Iris said. She almost widened her eyes in horror as she realized what she had said, but she noticed everybody took her comment about liking girls purely as a joke — except Rita Skeeter, whose smile widened as her eyes grew colder. Surprisingly, Fleur Delacour didn't look upset. She merely looked up and down at Rita Skeeter, raised an eyebrow at Iris, and snorted. Bagman looked as strangely nervous as the last time she had begun to insult people.
"Now now, no need for insults. We could do the interview over here if you'd like?" She looked to the corner of the classroom.
"Sure, why not?" Iris said, wanting to get it over with. If she said no, she'd likely make up an interview.
"Well then, okay," Rita Skeeter said. "I'll just ask you questions and if you could do your best to answer them, that would be fantastic."
Iris looked at her, unimpressed. "I'm familiar with how interviews work, thanks."
"Oh?" Rita Skeeter said, sounding very interested now. "Have you had many interviews before?"
"No. I just don't live under a rock. Judging by your fashion sense, however, that can only be said for one of —"
"Tell me, Iris," Rita Skeeter interrupted, smiling sweetly, "how do you feel being the youngest champion? You must feel nervous about the tasks ahead. Just how terrified are you? With so much less experience than the others, what did you expect to gain from entering yourself in this tournament? More attention? Do you really have such a need to prove yourself?"
Iris's eye twitched. "I feel fine. As I didn't enter myself in the tournament, your other questions should be directed elsewhere, the last two, perhaps, towards yourself."
"Can you remember your parents at all?"
"What?" Iris said through gritted teeth. "Planning on writing a pity story, are you?"
"Oh, no, not at all," Rita Skeeter said sweetly. "So, Iris, if they were alive, what would your parents say to —"
"Alright, listen, you dried up old banana," Iris said in a raised voice, her fists clenched. Why — just why — did she always get these idiots? Iris heard Fleur give a small and quick laugh at the insult, and although his face showed almost all signs of a reprimand, Dumbledore's eyes were twinkling. Iris took in a deep breath. "I feel just fine being the youngest champion. No, I don't feel nervous about the tasks ahead. At all. I didn't put my name into the tournament. Somebody else did it, most likely to get me killed in an innocent looking manner. And no, that line of thought is not ridiculous. My first Defense teacher tried to outright kill me, and the second tried to Memory Charm me to the point of me becoming almost as mindless as you. And if you ask me any more stupid questions, Professor Moody will mistake me for a banshee and that'll be another Defense teacher trying to kill me.
"I plan on winning this tournament, even if it's purely out of spite for vultures like you. And yes, you're a vulture. I saw what you wrote about Arthur Weasley, and had he not said anything at all, you would have made up something anyway. So why assassinate his character for saying what he had to? As for what my parents would say, they'd say you can go fuck yourself for bringing them up," Iris said. She took a deep breath, then shot a ball of fire from her wand at the paper that was writing what Iris had seen to be complete and total lies.
She walked out of the classroom, ignoring Rita Skeeter's sputtering.
She heard Dumbledore sigh and say, "Twenty-five points from Gryffindor for the language, Miss Potter..."
Iris was irritated as all hell. Screw this whole tournament, screw it all. They dragged her here to see if her wand was okay? Why the hell wouldn't it be okay? Then Ollivander has the nerve to start spouting out irrelevant things about her wand, in front of Rita Skeeter no less. And Rita Skeeter, oh, she was a cunt. A new breed of vulture, one she'd have to tell Newt about so he could update his book. First she completely slanders Mr. Weasley, a man who she viewed as a father figure, and then she had the nerve to ask those ridiculous questions? She hated people bringing up her parents in an attempt to make her look bad. Hermione had shown her plenty of her other articles too.
She realized her actions would come back to haunt her and she silently cursed herself for losing her temper again.
It had to be Fleur. Instead of making her drool like the boys did, her veela nature would just anger her — there was no other explanation. No, she was wrong. Snape. Snape had already infuriated her in class. She was on the verge of snapping by the time she had left his class, of course Rita would push her to —
"Iris?" said a voice from behind her. Iris turned around — and speak of the devil. It was Fleur.
"What?" Iris snapped. "Come to tell me how little I am again? Go away, I don't care."
"No," Fleur said, almost lazily, but Iris had already begun walking away. "I wanted to apologize…" Fleur muttered, scratching her head, but Iris was too far to hear.