Disclaimer: Nothing is mine; everything is J K Rowling's.
Chapter 14!
That moment you've all been waiting for has finally arrived. I've tried to do something a little different from any other fic I've yet seen.
I will mention that, for now at least, I am sort of sticking to the canon timeline of major events like the tasks and leaving their basic schematics unchanged since it would have all been organised and in motion before my AU really gets going.
It's going to be a ripple effect from now onwards, though I will endeavour not to stretch things too far since I think things are nicer when they're recognisably comparable, but have a bit of a twist.
Additionally I have now rewritten all the chapters up to this point, nothing too serious, but a few little things that might make things clearer. Anyone who wants to do me a huge favour reread and review the changes will get a hypothetical cookie ;)
Chapter 14
'It's today?'
'Yes,' Harry replied, giving the portrait a flat look. He'd said that twice already.
'I told you to come see beforehand so I could teach you things,' Salazar exploded, in parseltongue.
'I did,' Harry responded. 'I'm right here.'
'I can't teach you right before the task begins. You'll need your strength for the competition and blood magic is demanding field. It's sacrifice based, after all.' The snake slithered around his ancestor's neck before coming to settle on the other shoulder.
'You can't even teach me about the theory?'
'There's not much point, is there?' the portrait groused. 'Magic is best learned practically and actively, not listening to painting.'
Harry shoved Secrets of the Darkest Arts to one side and sat on the edge of the desk. There was still an hour or so until the task started and nothing to do while the portrait decided not to teach him.
'What is the task?' Salazar asked, after a brief silence.
'I have no idea,' Harry shrugged. 'I think it's probably meant to be a surprise.'
'Where is your cunning?' Slytherin demanded. 'What kind of Heir of Slytherin are you? You should have gone and found out.'
'From where?' Harry asked incredulously. 'The big book of future tournament tasks?'
Salazar sniggered and pointed at the desk behind him.
Harry swivelled and inspected an oddly new looking piece of parchment. 'The big book of future tournament tasks,' he read, amused.
'You left that just before you arrived,' the portrait smiled, 'said I'd understand in about an hour.'
'I used the time-turner, didn't I.' Harry turned to look at the desk only to find the golden necklace gone. 'Where am I?'
'You said you were going to practice occlumency exercises,' Salazar replied. 'Read the rest aloud for me.'
'Dragons,' Harry continued, 'distractions work best. Don't ignore Katie.'
'Dragons,' the painting mused. 'Could be worse.'
'Dragons are pretty bad,' Harry responded.
'Could be another basilisk,' Salazar countered. 'A dragon normally attacks by breathing fire, which they can only do in one direction, and is fairly easy to see coming and dodge. The stare of the king of serpents is much more subtle, and deadly.'
'If I'm hit by the fire. It won't matter.'
'You survived to warn yourself,' Salazar reminded him. 'The plan must have worked, and now you know it, because you will have done it, succeeded and told yourself.'
Harry blinked. 'Run that by me once more.'
'You left yourself a message telling you how to do the task after completing it,' Salazar reiterated. 'Just trust yourself and go with it.' He peered over Harry and frowned. 'What else does it say?'
'The small one bites,' Harry told him, confused.
'I have no idea what you were trying to tell yourself,' Salazar admitted. 'I hope it wasn't important, or that it becomes obvious later.'
'I can't imagine leaving myself an ambiguous note if it didn't need to be,' Harry decided. 'Know anything about dragons?' he asked the painting.
'I am Salazar Slytherin,' the portrait told him.
'You only ever say that when you don't know,' Harry grumbled.
'I wasn't stupid enough to ever pick a fight with one,' Salazar said testily. 'Avoid the fire, the claws and the teeth, their senses of smell and hearing aren't amazing, so once it's blind it's easy enough to remain undetected.'
'Some of that sounded useful,' Harry conceded in mock surprise.
'I hope the dragon gets you,' his ancestor groused.
'So do a lot of people, no doubt,' Harry admitted. 'I'll have a think about what to do on the way there. The rupturing curse should work on the eyes.'
'Cruel,' the painting commented, 'but effective.'
'If it works…'
'I suggest you try and use simple spells to find an elegant, easy solution,' Salazar began. 'Keeping your potential a secret is generally a good idea if you don't want to suddenly make a lot of powerful wizards and witches feel threatened.'
Harry had to admit he was probably right. Conjuring a vast basilisk out of dragon fire was a very tempting thought. The idea of such a spectacular piece of spell work was captivating, even in his mind's eye, but it would rather give away his strengths to everyone and only in the first round too.'
'An easy distraction and the rupturing curse then,' he decided.
'If that fails, don't hold back,' Salazar said sagely. 'Better to have potential enemies and be alive, than to be eaten by a dragon.'
The new motto of House Slytherin, Harry smiled.
'You don't seem very worried about your last living family member,' he noted.
'I know you survive,' the portrait replied. 'You're sitting in the pipes somewhere out there, after all.'
'I suppose,' Harry conceded grudgingly. He wasn't all too convinced about Salazar's theory. As far he was concerned if leaving the note changed anything he could very well die.'
Harry supposed that the version of him to first undertake the task had made such a mess of things he had no option but to resort to this. That version would not exist if the note changes things and so long as Harry remembered to leave the note afterwards the loop would close and things would progress as he hoped.
Of course, I could make a worse mess of things because of the note.
It was just best not to think about it.
'You should go,' the painting reminded him. 'Don't want to be late and miss watching the other champions try and avoid being toasted. You might pick something useful from them.'
Harry left the chamber rather swiftly. He didn't want to be late and upset any events that needed to happen for him to survive and leave the note. He'd been very careful using the time-turner up until this point, so whatever was about to happen must have been important to persuade him to try and change things.
Awful things happen to wizards who mess with time, Harry, he remembered Hermione tell him.
He had stopped listening to her, though.
When he reached the newly built arena it was fairly obvious where he was meant to be. The large, white tent with all the reporters and headteachers outside.
Rather than squeeze past them all, Harry slipped in through the side.
All three of the other champions were there. Cedric looked pale, but determined, Krum was brooding, as he often seemed to be, frowning at one of the tent poles and the french witch was looking rather confident. Harry wasn't sure he liked any of them enough to warn them about the dragons.
'You're all here,' Bagman boomed enthusiastically. He was trailed by a stern looking Mr Crouch and his loyal lapdog, Percy Weasley.
'Stick your hand in the bag to draw out your opponent,' Mr Crouch instructed tersely. 'Your task will be to retrieve the golden egg.'
And there I was at the World cup thinking I would never be stupid enough to try and steal an egg from a dragon.
'You first, Mr Diggory.' Bagman clapped him firmly on the back. 'Home team has to set an example.'
Cedric dipped his hand into the bag rather gingerly. It came out clutching a short-faced, silvery-blue dragon, that twisted and hissed in his palm. He didn't look too surprised to be holding a small model dragon.
'And you, Mr Krum.'
The Bulgarian seeker stomped across and all but snatched his dragon from the proffered back. He'd ended up with a red, bulging-eyed creature that prowled along the length of his palm, snorting small bursts of fire and stretching its bright crimson wings.
'Miss Delacour.'
So that's her name.
The Delacour girl looked really rather pale now in comparison to how confident she'd looked earlier, but when her fist came out clutching a green-brown dragon that seemed more content to curl up and sleep on her hand than do anything dramatic, her colour returned.
Percy turned and thrust the bag at him rather rudely. 'Potter,' he said coldly.
Harry returned his stare with equal iciness until the Weasley boy looked away, then reached into the bag. His fingers met with something warm and small. It wriggled. He drew it out of the bag to have a look.
It was as black as his wand, covered in jagged scales and spines, serpent-like and quite angry. Harry watched it writhe along his palm, spitting small plumes of fire in every direction.
'So Mr Diggory gets the Swedish Short-Snout, Mr Krum the Chinese Fireball, Miss Delacour the Welsh Green and Mr Potter has the Hungarian Horntail.' Ludo Bagman was clearly very excited for everything to start.
'We will proceed in that order,' Mr Crouch added wearily. He didn't seem too happy with his fellow organiser. 'At the sound of the cannon you need only go through the entrance and the task will have begun.'
There was dull boom in the background.
'I guess that means you're out preparation time, Cedric,' Bagman joked. 'Go show them why Hogwarts has won this tournament the most times.'
Cedric shot the man a look filled with a surprising amount of ire for a Hufflepuff, then hurried out through the tent entrance. Ludo Bagman, Crouch and Percy slipped out through the side of the tent, both of the main organisers were judges and needed to be present.
Harry eyed the dragon on his palm, carefully noting the barbed tail it had been named for. The tiny dragon stared back up at him, unintimidated. It's yellow eyes bored angrily into his, then, in a flurry of movement, it turned and seized the tip of his finger between its jaws. Harry swore and flicked it's side until it let go.
The small one bites.
There was a roar from the crowd outside and the enraged bellow of a dragon.
'It seems a bit unfair we can't watch as well,' Harry muttered. Krum, who was still standing nearby, chuckled.
'It would not be fair,' he shrugged. 'Whomever went first would have a disadvantage.'
The Bulgarian had a point, but Harry thought it was rather unfair he had to compete at all and thus had little sympathy for his fellow champions. They had signed up for this willingly.
The cannon boomed once more and Krum straightened up. Discarding his model, he gave Harry and the Beauxbatons witch a nod, then vanished out into the entrance. Harry hoped he survived. He was a good seeker, a little surly, but nice enough and probably his favourite of the other champions.
'Are you not nervous?' It was the first time the witch had spoken to him since she had asked about the stew upon arriving.
Harry raised an eyebrow at her.
'I've seen that dragon close up when it was caged,' she embellished. 'I didn't want to be near it then. I certainly don't now.'
That explained a lot. None of the others had been surprised because they had already known about the dragons as well.
'They're all pretty dangerous,' Harry replied earnestly. His statement was punctuated by the furious roars of the Chinese Fireball from outside.
'You are fourteen, Harry,' the girl reminded him. 'There is no way you could have learned as much magic as us. We are the best of our schools.' He thought that was rather arrogant of her, even if it would have been true for any other.
'I have no choice but to compete,' he responded calmly. 'Why fear something if fearing it will not help,' he searched his mind for her first name but found nothing, 'I'm afraid I don't know your name,' he admitted.
'Fleur Delacour,' the girl told him very coldly. 'I will let you read it off the Triwizard Cup at the end, if you are still alive.'
Harry felt that pretty much ended any chance of conversation with the haughty french girl.
The cannon's thunderous report sounded at that moment anyway, so if the conversation had been going to continue it was over now.
Fleur Delacour shot him a look between anger and pity as she stalked out towards the dragon. She clearly had quite a temper. Harry almost felt sorry for the creature that was about to be in her way.
The tent was much more peaceful and bearable now that everyone else had left. It was nice to have some quiet around him again.
Time stretched on as Harry waited and still there was no sound from the arena beyond. He had heard nothing from either the crowd or the dragon. It was possible the french witch had been eaten and the crowd was in horrified silence, but Harry had the sinking feeling she might emerge victorious and more unbearable.
The cannon sounded again and Harry flinched at the sudden noise. His movement caused the small dragon in his hand, that had finally settled down a few moments ago, to lash out with its tail and stab him in the palm.
Infernal creature, Harry swore internally. If the real one is as bad this one, I'm not going to enjoy this at all.
He eyed the model and smirked.
You'll be coming with me, he decided rather spitefully.
The tent opened into a short, rocky passageway that led down into the arena. Since there was only one way, forwards, Harry followed it, hiding the hand he was holding the model horntail in and slipping his wand out of his sleeve.
The golden egg was nestled on top of a clutch of the dragon eggs. There was no Hungarian Horntail in sight, but Harry was not so foolish as to simply step out.
He glanced around the arena, took aim at one of the rocks and murmured, 'reducto.' He had not put much power into the spell so its impact with the rock created little more than a loud noise.
A searing column of flame engulfed the innocent stone a moment later and the dragon made its appearance.
Oh my.
It was a very impressive looking creature and Harry instantly grasped why Fleur Delacour had not wanted to be near the dragon after the horntail was uncaged. It was only a little shorter than the dead basilisk in the Chamber of Secrets and similarly built. The model really did not do the creature justice. The dragon spread its tattered wings over the nest to make itself appear larger and lashed its tail across the rocks savagely behind it to produce a ghastly screeching sound.
Harry hurled the model dragon to the far side of the arena and took careful aim with his wand.
'Engorgio,' he hissed. There was no limit to the enlarging spell save how much magic could be channelled from the caster and the model dragon was soon every bit as large as its real counterpart. It left Harry with very little magic left.
This has better work.
Faced with a more serious threat than Harry, the Hungarian Horntail whirled around and roared in challenge. The crowd cheered loudly, thrilled by this new turn of events. Harry couldn't blame them.
Who wouldn't want to watch dragons fight?
'Confractio,' Harry whispered, aiming his rupturing curse for its eyes. His first two attempts miss completely as the dragons squared up, his third deflected harmlessly off the real dragon's jaw, but his fourth hit true and blinded the creature on his side.
It screamed with rage and pain, shaking its head and spattering the ground nearby with drops of steaming dragon's blood.
Seeking to eliminate its rival and end the threat to its nest the horntail swung its tail in a vicious circle towards the enlarged model. Fortunately the depth perception of the dragon was hindered with one eye and it only succeeded in obliterating part of the arena wall next to Harry's distraction.
The fragments of stone that sprayed from the impact tore holes through the plastic skin of the model.
The enlarged model lunged forwards, grappling with the the original and the two dragons went crashing to the floor on the far side of the arena.
Harry quietly took his chance and stole a little closer to the nest.
On the far side of the arena the model had pinned the actual dragon beneath it, driving its tail through the tattered, leathery wing of its attacker. The original dragon seemed dazed, but the attacks of the enlarged model were not penetrating the hard ebony scales and deflected off harmlessly. When it recovered its senses the model, which was only enchanted plastic, and then Harry, would be in serious trouble.
He snuck a little closer to the eggs, warily watching the tail of the downed dragon scrape across the ground by the nest.
The real horntail curled its tail back on itself and impaled the creature pinning it to the floor through the chest. Using the tail now embedded in the model it threw the enlarged replica off itself and on to the floor, raking deep gouges into the model when it tried to rise with the clawed tips of its uninjured wing.
Darting towards the nest before the real dragon won and his distraction failed, Harry abandoned subtlety entirely.
The horntail unleashed a second wave of white flames at Harry's battered, enchanted replica. For all the magic placed upon it to make it lifelike the model was not a real dragon, and withered away to ashes within seconds.
That will teach it to bite me, he thought smugly as it disintegrated, then he remembered where he was and swore violently.
Harry took what was left of his opportunity, grabbed the egg, and ran, completely ignoring the roar of the crowd behind him.
There was a horrified gasp from the arena and the barbed tail of the Hungarian Horntail slammed into the rocks beside him a second later. Harry had no doubt that if the dragon had not been half-blind he would have been killed.
Diving behind the nearest cover he dodged a torrent of fire, then wriggled away to hide from the dragon's remaining malicious, yellow eye. He wasn't exactly sure anyone would, but now he had the egg he quite hoped someone would step in and deal with the dragon before it realised where he was and finished him off.
A very loud thump came from close nearby and Harry risked a glance out around the rock.
The Hungarian Horntail was unconscious.
Standing up to the applause of the arena, Harry bounced his golden egg in the crook of his arm. Whatever was inside this thing had better have been worth it.
He found all of three of the other champions in the infirmary tent. Cedric looked like the dragon had used half his body as chewtoy, Krum was a little burned in places, but the french witch was untouched.
'Nobody died, then,' he remarked cheerfully.
'It was touch and go,' Cedric admitted, then winced at the pain of moving. Krum laughed. Fleur Delacour just stared at him curiously. It was rather unsettling, all the more so given that she was looking directly at him and not at his scar like most of the others.
'They will be doing your score,' Krum told him thickly. 'You should go look.'
Harry gave him a nod, mimicking the Bulgarian's action from earlier, and vanished before Madam Pomfrey appeared and tied him to a bed.
The five judges were sitting in an elevated box overlooking the entire arena. As Harry watched Madam Maxime, the french headmistress, raised her wand and shot an eight into the air. It was followed by a nine from Professor Dumbledore and a seven from the Durmstrang headmaster, Karkaroff.
'Bagman gave you a ten and Crouch gave you an eight,' a girl remarked from behind him.
Katie Bell, he realised.
He was about to turn away and ignore her when he remembered the note.
'Thanks,' he forced out. 'What are they out of?'
'Ten, of course,' she smiled. 'You did really well. They only took points off because you stopped to watch the dragons fight and took a little longer than the Beauxbatons champion.'
'What did she do?' Harry hoped it was something less well-received.
'She sang something and then the dragon and every male in the audience fell asleep, even Dumbledore yawned. The judges all gave her nines except Karkaroff. He gave her an eight.' Katie pulled an annoyed face. 'All the guys seem to go weird around her,' she complained. 'Except you, that is.'
'And the others?' Harry had plenty of things he could say about Fleur Delacour, but she had outscored him, so he decided to lose graciously.
For now, at least.
'Cedric did the worst. He transfigured a distraction and went for the egg, but the dragon got him with its wing and tail. You and Krum are equal. He blinded his dragon and collected the egg after it had flailed somewhere out the way, but lots of the eggs got smashed.'
Katie gave him a once over. 'You didn't get a scratch, did you?'
'No,' Harry replied, slightly smug.
'That's impressive. Angelina was really impressed too, you know.'
'I don't care,' Harry told her, rather more coldly.
'She'll come to apologise soon,' Katie warned. 'Like I have.' She gave him a rueful grin.
'Fred and George told me you tried to convince her to stop holding a grudge.'
'I did,' she replied, 'but I still didn't speak to you.'
'You are now,' Harry reminded her.
'I guess I am. I was afraid you'd just ignore me. I think I would have been quite angry if you'd done that,' she admitted. 'Hermione,' there was a certain venom to the way Katie spat her name, 'has been telling everyone how you've changed and won't forgive anyone. She's unintentionally stopped a lot of people apologising by saying that.'
'I won't forgive them,' Harry told her. 'But I won't hold a grudge against the people who tried to help me.' Katie smiled brightly.
'And Angelina?' she asked, almost hesitantly.
'She was the worst in the beginning,' Harry warned Katie.
'She was really jealous,' Katie explained, 'we all told her that she would get it and she got convinced, then everything happened and things got out of hand. I know you don't owe me anything, but would you consider giving her a second chance, if not for me, for the quidditch team. Gryffindor needs its seeker.'
'I'll listen to her if she comes to me,' Harry promised, 'but that's all.'
'Thanks, Harry.' Katie stepped forwards and hugged him suddenly. He stiffened with surprise, but she didn't let go. Hesitantly he returned the hug, wrapping his arms around her.
I'm taller than her, he noted. He definitely hadn't used to be.
'That was nice,' Katie smiled. 'You're taller than you used to be.'
'I noticed.' He looked down his nose at her pointedly.
She gave him a mock glare and a wave as she wandered back towards the arena.
How did she even find her way up here?
The spot between the champions tent and medical tent was quite tucked away and only visible from outside the entrance of the former.
She must have waited.
Harry thought that had been rather nice of her.
'Mr Potter,' a very annoyed voice came from behind him.
Uh oh.
'I do not remember telling you that you could leave my medical tent, Mr Potter,' Madam Pomfrey exclaimed. She was wielding her wand in one hand and a very horrible looking, brown potion in the other.
'You didn't say I had to stay either,' he pointed out.
'In,' she commanded, pointing sternly at the entrance with her wand.
Harry complied. The Hungarian Horntail was one thing, but some battles just could not be won.
'What did you get?' Krum asked, when he stepped through the tent flap. Evidently nobody else had been given permission to leave either.
'Forty two points and a very stern lecture from Madam Pomfrey,' Harry informed.
'You have the same score as me,' Krum nodded. 'Well done. I did not expect it, but it is good to have competition.'
'I did the worst,' Cedric looked miserable, but the left side of his body was normal again.
'Forty four,' was the only comment Fleur Delacour made. She was staring at him again.
'Are you sure you don't want to be Hogwarts' champion, Harry?' the Hufflepuff seeker asked. 'You got eight more points than I did.'
'It's just the first task,' Harry reminded Cedric gently, turning a pointed look on Fleur. She seemed surprised that he had looked at her, but just flicked her hair back over her shoulder and turned away.
'Drink this,' Madam Pomfrey ordered, bustling back out from the other part of the tent.
'I didn't even get a scratch,' Harry protested, eyeing the nasty looking, brown potion distastefully.
'When you've drunk it, you can all leave,' Madam Pomfrey offered.
The potion was gone in one mouthful.
'Go, then,' the strict nurse instructed. 'You'd think you'd be more grateful after spending so much time in my care every year, Mr Potter.' Harry shot her a grateful smile, but the taste of the potion she had given him somewhat curdled it.
'I want to sleep for a week,' Cedric admitted on their way back up to the school. The other two champions had been whisked away by their respective headteachers upon leaving the tent.
'We're excused from lessons, go ahead,' he grinned, tucking his egg back under his arm. 'I think I'm going to go lie down for a bit as well.'
It was at that moment he remembered he had to go back and use the time-turner to leave the note for himself.
Occlumency exercises. He smiled at the lie he knew he must have told the portrait of Salazar. I'm going to find a nice, wide point in the pipes and transfigure something into a bed.
AN: Please read and review :)
P.S. For those who might be concerned about the pairing after this chapter, don't panic and remember your towel! I just like to take things slowly and make them ambiguous.
