Chapter 27
Harry smiled at Daphne as she descended the stairs in her ball gown. "You're going to be the most beautiful girl there," he said, silently adding if Fleur, Maria and a few others don't turn up.
Daphne smiled, her cheeks slightly reddening. "You don't look so bad yourself." He, of course, already knew that. He was effectively wearing a black tuxedo, its shirt silk and green, and a cape upon his back. That said, he wasn't exactly sure whether he was meant to wear a cape, but who was going to challenge the Boy-Who-Lived? Perhaps he would start a new clothing trend.
Casting that thought aside, he idly conversed with Daphne as he awaited the arrival of the other champions and their partners. It wasn't long before they arrived, Fleur and Cedric both with people Harry didn't recognise and Krum, surprisingly, with Hermione.
Why Krum had chosen to ask her was quite the mystery. He could've had almost any girl he wanted, but he had chosen the bossy bookworm who was slightly above average at best - and that was when she spent hours doing her hair and make-up. That said, she hadn't been very bossy since Harry had dealt with her; she was quite a bit timider now. Harry hoped she would remain like that, or he would be forced to deal with her again.
Even now, she glanced over to him. He smiled back at her without a hint of malice and turned back towards the doors, linking arms with Daphne as they prepared to enter the hall. It was not long before the doors opened, and they moved into the packed room, the others following behind.
The room was brightly lit, the floating candles slightly higher than usual, and some grand chandeliers hanging from the ceiling to help illuminate the room. Students already littered the tables, with a table at the room's head clearly set to host the teachers and champions. With the other champions and Daphne, Harry moved over to it, looking over the room.
Maria sat at a table with a boy from Beauxbatons that Harry was fairly sure he recognised from somewhere. 'The ball at Aurelius Manor,' Loki said, and Harry nodded in response.
Maria appeared to be purposefully avoiding his gaze. He supposed that she was still jealous. She had been expecting him to ask her, probably.
Harry pulled a seat out for Daphne, smiling falsely at his display of chivalry. If he sought to gain her affections, it was best to treat her in ways that would make her naturally more inclined to liking him in combination with his other methods, which included extremely weak love potions and illusions. The weakness meant she wouldn't ever notice any kind of discrepancy, for she actually had reasons to like him.
Now Harry had actually tried making potions, he had proved rather good at it, largely due to the fact that all he had to do was follow what were basically recipes. He could simply have Loki control his actions, which made his movements inhumanly precise and thus made making potions rather easy to make.
After going to Knockturn Alley and collecting a few books on the subject he had been able to make almost whatever he wanted, including a powerful hallucinogenic. That had been what he had used on Hermione, pricking her with a needle as he passed her and spectating upon her thoughts. All he had done was carve her wand; the hallucinogenic had done the job of conjuring her worst fear.
The illusion might've been a bit extreme, now Harry thought about it. If Hermione killed herself out of the blue, there would be only one culprit Dumbledore would think responsible. Dumbledore hadn't been interacting as much as usual with students in the past weeks, though had broken this to attend the ball. He sat at the head of the head table, looking completely ordinary, though Harry noticed that he was yet to look in his direction.
Harry barely listened as the other champions conversed. It wasn't long before the food was served, summoned to the table by house elves, and Harry ate. Only a short time later, Dumbledore stood, clearing his throat with a magical loudness. "Champions." His voice boomed through the room, yet it sounded completely normal, and Harry hadn't seen him cast a Sonorous charm. "Would you please stand for the first dance."
At that prompt, Harry got to his feet with a smile. He extended a hand to Daphne. "Would you care to dance, Miss Greengrass?"
She matched his expression. "Of course, Mr Potter." Harry decided not to correct that he was, in fact, Lord Potter. Not everyone had as good a memory as Loki.
His hand holding Daphne's, Harry led her out to the middle of the dance floor.
"I do hope you know how to dance," said Daphne.
The music began to play, and Harry's lips twisted up into a smirk. He allowed Loki to push himself to the forefront of his mind. "Trust me, I do." He placed one hand on her waist, and the dance began.
It could have only lasted for three minutes, but Harry decided to ensure that he was the centre of attention. So when the dance finished, Daphne was left reddened with exertion and covered in a thin sheen of sweat. The crowd applauded and Harry glanced across the hall to where he had seen Malfoy sitting. It had turned out that there had been some truth concerning his prior guess about Malfoy being envious, and the boy's expression was now twisted into one of anger as he ignored Pansy Parkinson, his date, who was trying to make him get up and dance.
With a smirk, Harry winked at Malfoy and turned back to Daphne. She was staring at him with something that appeared to be a mixture of awe and lust, or so he chose to think. He decided it would be much more effective if he were a bit taller, rather than almost the same height. Nonetheless, he carried his plan out, leaning forward and kissing her upon the lips.
A strangled gasp emitted from Loki. 'Why the hell would you do that?' Obviously, he either hadn't been listening to Harry's thoughts, or simply hadn't had time to react to them.
Harry pulled back from the kiss, smiling at Daphne before walking over to a table. 'Oh, relax,' he said. 'Everyone thinks I'm doing it to make Malfoy jealous, and Daphne thinks I faked that to conceal my secret alliance with Slytherin.'
'And what, exactly, are the upsides?' Loki's tone was as exasperated as it had ever been.
Harry kept walking. 'Well, it will make Malfoy and Maria jealous, which will be amusing.' He hummed in thought. 'It will make Daphne like me more…'
'I doubt it; you're an awful kisser.'
'Oh, Loki,' Harry practically simpered. 'You flatter me. I know I'm fantastic at everything I do, but I highly doubt that Daphne is that filled with awe.' He paused. 'Na, she probably is.'
Loki sighed. 'You just did it because you're a spontaneous idiot.'
'No!' Harry exclaimed indignantly. '...Well, sometimes.'
'What've you done with Harry?' Loki demanded. 'No child raised by me would ever admit their flaws.'
'I don't see it as a flaw,' Harry said, now finally reaching his destination. 'It just makes me...eccentric.'
'Like Dumbledore?'
'I'll have you know he's a powerful, but also insane and manipulative wizard - not weird.' He sat down in his chair. 'So yes, like me,' he said.
Loki sighed. 'Of course.' Now he sounded rather resigned.
Harry gave a mental shrug. "Hi, Maria. How's your evening been so far?"
She was a shade of red matching that which Malfoy currently was, from which Harry concluded she was rather jealous. Her angry expression only helped to confirm that. A Mafia princess probably should've had a better level of control over her facial expressions, but he supposed that she was inexperienced.
"Just fine," she said. Her tone was so forced that Harry almost laughed. A Mafia princess probably should've also had better control of their tone. Maria was really bad at manipulation - worse than Daphne, even. "How has yours been?"
He smiled. "Absolutely fine thanks, though it's far from over. Would you care to dance?"
Maria's eye twitched, and Harry resisted the urge to snigger.
The Great Lake sat in front of Harry, glistening in the afternoon sunlight and quite frankly undeserving of its name. Its diameter could be half a mile at most, which wasn't exactly his definition of "grand." It would, however, make it easier for him to complete the Second Task.
He glanced back over his shoulder at the crowd, once again noting Daphne's absence. While he was preparing for the task, it hadn't taken him and Loki long to guess that they wouldn't, in fact, be stealing his money and throw it in the lake. No, the closeness of the Yule Ball had brought them to the conclusion that they would be taking the person they perceived the champion would miss most. And now, with all of the champions' partners from the Yule Ball - except for Fleur's, though she hadn't exactly seemed smitten within him - missing, their theory was near confirmed.
Was Harry worried? Certainly not. For all he cared, Daphne could drown; if he wanted to win the task, however, he couldn't let that happen - and he wanted to win.
In all truthfulness, the task had been terribly planned. All of the action would take place under the lake, so the audience wouldn't see any of it. Harry supposed it was more about the atmosphere, but that too was stupid. Who went to a gladiator match and remained excited when they heard the battle would take place out of sight in the changing room?
It being underwater presented a whole new level of challenge for Harry. After all, how was one supposed to showboat when no one could see them? He had planned accordingly, and was fairly sure that, once again, his performance would be the most impressive, even if it did not earn the most points.
A supernaturally loud cough suddenly sounded over the ever-lasting chatter of the crowd. Dumbledore had gotten to his feet. "Champions! Please prepare to enter the lake!"
Harry had been spinning his wand between his fingers, and now pointed it at himself, vanishing his earlier-conjured clothes. Underneath, he still wore his enchanted clothes, though had charmed them to appear more like a wetsuit; not a difficult task when they already greatly resembled one.
As much as he might've liked to show off his muscles, taking the wetsuit off would risk him finding himself impaled upon the spear of a merman, which wouldn't be good. It left more to the imagination as well, Loki had said, which would make the fangirls fantasise all the more about him. Harry wasn't convinced.
He glanced to the other champions, who had chosen to wear simple swimwear rather than a wetsuit like his. For a moment, he was surprised that the clothes were so ordinary. Wizarding clothing was decidedly odd, even if he did like how it was acceptable to wear capes, and he had expected something like… He wasn't quite sure what he had expected. Waterproof robes? Giant Squid replica suits?
Those thoughts only carried his focus for a moment before he moved on to staring at Fleur's behind. He was torn from that as Dumbledore said, "Champions, at the ready!"
Now Cedric, Fleur, and Krum began to prepare, waving their wands over themselves. Harry did nothing.
"Three!" Dumbledore began to count.
Harry turned and walked away from the lake, back towards the crowd.
Dumbledore gave no pause. "Two!"
With a wave at the crowd, Harry turned back towards the lake, now standing about ten metres from it.
As Dumbledore began to yell, "One!" Harry was already sprinting at the water.
A cannon roared, and a moment later four champions hit the water; three slipped below the surface. Harry stayed atop. The roaring cheers of the crowd faded to nothing as he focused on the task at hand. To run on water, a human would need to run roughly around thirty metres per second - around three times as fast as the world record - or have very large feet. Harry didn't have large feet, no matter how many people claimed it had a correlation to the size of one's genitals, and also couldn't run at thirty metres per second without collapsing from exhaustion.
What he could do, however, was run at speeds still far exceeding those of humans, whilst also holding charms that would decrease his weight, and freezing the water under his feet. He wouldn't be replicating Jesus any time soon, but that didn't matter. This way made him look more as though he was actually in a hurry to rescue Daphne.
'Now,' Loki suddenly said, shattering Harry's concentration like a pane of glass. That did not matter, however. Loki had been sending out his magical senses. A whole village of mermen would not go unnoticed, especially with the magic moving through water, and that was where Harry expected to find his hostage.
Harry let himself fall forward gracefully, and speared through the water like a...spear. The splash would hopefully conceal the brief moment he had emerged to cast a bubblehead charm. He had already applied his waterproofing charms, so the next time he entered he did not emerge once again. Instead, he kicked downwards, into the murky darkness.
Once he was deep enough that his vision was severely limited, Harry turned his wand upon himself. "Videre Noxus." A brief pain flashed through his eyes before being cooled by Loki and a blindness descended upon Harry. After half a minute, Harry could see once again. Everything was illuminated in the signature green glow of night-vision.
What appeared to be a village sat below him. Mermen were dotted all about, wielding spears of unidentifiable materials. They were most certainly not the beautiful creations of myth, with flowing hair and pretty features and the tail of a fish. No, these creatures were all covered in ugly, blue scales. Their yellow eyes shone up at Harry, almost haunting, and his plan of using an illusion suddenly faded.
He would simply have to go in, and if they attempted to attack him, kill everything. He was perfectly capable of it, he knew, but Dumbledore would likely disapprove. Harry didn't want the man to poke his nose in once again. So down he sank, ready to draw his sword from his holster and spit out a spell as the first sign of any attack.
None came. The mermen simply watched him. From windows of shacks built out of stone, mermaids and children joined them, staring with eyes of eerie yellow.
Harry did his best not to be paranoid, but it was hard with what must've been a hundred pairs of eyes staring into him.
'We're in water,' said Loki, 'which means even you'll sense them before they attack.'
Calming himself, Harry continued to the village's centre. Four girls floated in the water, each with hair a different colour and attached to rocks with rope. Harry recognised Hermione and Daphne. The Asian girl he recognised as Cedric's date, and the final one, a child with white-blonde hair, could've only been a relative of Fleur's.
For a brief moment, Harry contemplated taking a different hostage, either for a joke, or to gain the gratitude of a few Veelas. He rapidly decided upon only taking Daphne; once again, not wanting to antagonise Dumbledore was at the forefront of his mind.
Harry swam over to Daphne, cautious of any merman assailants, and cut the rope without a word, grabbing Daphne around the waist. He eyed the mermen once more, and then kicked upwards, towards the surface. But he did not break it, of course - that would be nowhere near dramatic enough. Instead, he swam towards the starting point underwater. From the fact that Daphne wasn't dead yet, he assumed she was under some kind of enchanted sleep, so did not tamper with it.
When he was around ten metres from the pier from which he had originally jumped, he gathered his power. He muttered a powerful explosive spell, and heat and force suddenly erupted underneath him. He was shot up in the air, still holding Daphne tight, and arced through the air.
The pier shook underfoot as he landed upon it, and the crowd burst into cheers. At least this time Harry hadn't killed everything and forgotten what he was meant to retrieve.
A/N: I just watched all of Game of Thrones (about 46 hours) in 3 days. Just thought I'd tell you guys, so you'd know how immensely cool I am.
