Many thanks to lubabpaul for the beta-ing!
TRIWIZARD II
After the winter holidays, I came back to Hogwarts with a new objective. Looting it for all it was worth.
Yes, I was greedy, no I didn't think it was anyone's business if I stole stuff nobody used anyway.
There was a sixty-foot long, one thousand years old basilisk nobody would ever need (I would leave a fang for horcrux stabbing).
Un-cursing Rowena's Diadem would be challenging, but I wanted it, and once I learned to replicate it, I could gift it to Flitwick, because I liked him. And a self-made version to Luna because she kept Raven off my back playing riddles.
However, the fight with the dragon had been fun. I feared I was going to become an adrenaline junkie and live this life like a high-level player of Skyrim, bullshitting my way through wardbreaker sites and store away priceless artefacts.
Then I came back to my senses. Magic was much more interesting, and I wouldn't forget that gold had value only because humans gave it any meaning. That would be the reason why I was currently learning about water without a care in the world.
Simply directing water was easy enough, even turning it into ice or steam presented zero problems. However, I wanted to be water, in the same way I was able to be fire and lightening. The latter was a work in progress, the first would come once I perfected my Gubraithian Fire. Absolute mastery of an element came like everything else, with a lot of practice.
I knew fire with my mind and magic and guts. I knew the soothing warmth and the unforgiving hunger, the humming quality of a bonfire and the searing pain of cauterization. All of that had been part of the long way I walked to learn how to properly cast Fiendfyre, and soon, a Perfect Gubraithian Fire.
A side effect of the feather was that my wand held a minor imprint of the thunderbird knowledge of lightning. And it was a matter of time before my soul-voice became so interwoven with the wand's soul-voice that the visceral and complete understanding of lighting would simply bleed over.
That was possible only because of whatever shit Ollivander's uncle did to let my wand retain such an intense impression of the demiguise, the spruce and the thunderbird' s soul voice. Potter wouldn't gain a fire affinity anytime soon. While the phoenix voice was louder, the fourth champion just didn't listen.
Being sorted into Slytherin probably would have forced him to 'sink or swim' so to speak and making more affinity on his own wand would have strengthened the bond and maybe pushed him toward greatness. The Hat had been, admittedly, spot on.
Going back to my current conundrum, I supposed that the very real, distinct, and dangerous possibility was that while being a particular element you forgot yourself and your soul-voice would unravel, once again flowing into the Whole.
Otherwise known as dying.
The understanding of yourself must be always balanced with the understanding of the element you were being.
At least that was my understanding of what the peak of elemental manipulation was.
The balance probably meant that you became what would be defined as an avatar: a balanced mixture of your will and the very idea of the element you were channeling in that state. I would unravel the mystery of the sentience of the elements and discover if gods were still real when I was older. For now, I was getting acquainted with the Hogwarts's lake.
Meaning that I was simply holding my wand and trying to listen to the water and Raven was perched, like usual, on my left shoulder.
"I have cities, but no houses.
I have mountains, but no trees.
I have seas, but they stay still,
I have rivers, but without waters.
What am I?" she croaked.
I also discovered that riddles are an acquired taste. And I wasn't properly focusing because I couldn't for all that is holy answer the riddle! My magic resonated with my crippling annoyance and sparks danced on my wand. I sighed, maybe I could do something else, like enchanting some shit, or think of a way that could cleanse the fucking Ravenclaw's horcrux, or I could replicate the Marauder's...
"A map!" I shouted, startling my familiar.
"It's a bloody map! Where the hell did you find a riddle so annoying!?"
Raven flapped her wing, feeling smug. It took me three days. Three days of her annoying satisfied expression. And yes, I know she doesn't actually have a face, but I could tell. A subdued laugh made me notice that I had been standing still for a while and that my sudden outburst probably was hilarious for anyone but me.
Before interacting with another human, I wished to send away Raven, at least I would be spared the white feathered headache that was my familiar. After a sigh, I gave Raven one of Bilbo's riddles.
"Thirty white horses on a red hill,
First, they champ,
Then they stamp,
And always stood still."
My familiar stilled. After a second, she spoke "Unfair!" and flew away. That was her new, and quite a welcome reaction to every riddle she couldn't solve after a single second. I turned to see who was standing behind me. Fleur Delacour actually snorted after watching our bickering.
"I wanted to thank you for your Christmas gift. It was very interesting."
"I don't recall having signed any Christmas cards." I smiled.
"Oh, but you did." she laughed.
"Of wards and enchantments: a never heard before handwritten book on topics we discussed. With a highly controversial view upon souls, blood and runes."
Her magic felt... springy. "It also had a hardcover made from a Chinese Fireball's skin and was marked with an Ansuz rune. The rune of Odin himself, who is also known as One-eye." she concluded.
"Miss Delacour, that is, at best, circumstantial proof." I grinned.
After all souls and blood were forbidden topics, it wouldn't do to give aurors a free pass to arrest me.
And good luck trying to destroy or censor any part of it.
I stole a sheep and 'harvested' the vellum, working with both knife and magic to make each page spell resistant, then using ink mixed with the sheep's blood I copied in it the result of years of research.
The fact that vellum and ink were both from the same source strengthened the feeling of belonging to the whole I was hoping to build. But that was far from the best part. With the dragon's blood and skin, I made sure the book had an identity, something that even Fiendfyre could not devour. Runic arrays had been etched on each square inch of the vellum, before being filled with dragon's blood, again and again.
The hardcover of dragon skin 'felt' the runes as a part of what once was. Hence the identity.
Obviously, the metal bindings that I forged in Fiendfyre helped. The metal was not actually metal, but an always active alchemical process. That Fiendfyre could be used in a process to create or protect was obviously a paradox.
But in this case, the Fiendfyre was the metal. Since that peculiar brand of cursed flame ate everything, even magic, and the metal bindings' identity was tightly knotted with the actual book, the binding would consume anything to keep themselves, and the manuscript along with them, safe.
I tied both their identities (that actually were the sum of their single enchantments) to the Ansuz rune. While I'm being modest, I'll say that it had been pure, unadulterated genius.
"However, if I remember it right Ansuz stands for knowledge and enlightenment. If someone started writing a series of books marking them with such a rune, I would applaud his effort. That rune more than any other stands for an idea, and ideas never die." My smile turned predatory.
"If I were to venture a guess, I'd say that such an artifact could even withstand Fiendfyre and could be used as a shield against the killing curse." Now that I thought about it, that book was priceless. That was probably the reason why Fleur did not hate me for having refused to attend the Yule ball with her.
She was left speechless, evidently, she didn't try to cast any detection spells at it, since the book would eat them. The only way to analyze the book's enchantments would be listening to it, but they were so many and so tightly interwoven that it would only cause headaches. "I noticed you from the carriage, I thought the duelling tournament would be interesting to observe..." she went on, half invite, half excuse.
"The champions are the brightest of their schools, and we both know the distance between us and the rest." I replied, and before she could take offence at my dismissive tone, I went on. "To answer your unspoken question, I'm learning the water. I'll give you an impromptu lesson if you'll let me. I assure you it will be more interesting."
She tilted her head, knowing that there was more in my answer than what appeared, and that I was not the type to hide a sexual approach under a promise of knowledge.
I took her hand and walked on the lake. It was a spur of the moment thing, I learned how to water walk in my fourth year, and it was a skill I didn't need to use until now that I wished to awake the dying spark that I saw into Fleur's eyes.
That same wonder for everything extraordinary that pushed Luna's soul-voice where her mind couldn't completely follow and that was only a shadow in Flitwick. "I heard what they said about my thunderstorm. Weather charms. Puah! Like wand movements and some gibberish are an important part of any kind of magic." I stopped myself before starting an actual rant.
"You probably guessed by now that wand movements and incantations are only an effective trick for the mind. And while they are a useful crutch for children, they can hardly compensate for an act of magic that sprouts from understanding and will." I calmly explained.
"You probably cast the spells you're more familiar with silently and with only an approximation of the textbook wand movement."
When she nodded, I explained to her with broad strokes, about will and understanding. The watered-down version admittedly had more than a few inconsistencies, so I could relate to her disbelieving face. Noticing her sceptical look, I went on: "You spoke about duels before, perhaps a friendly one would work as a demonstration?".
She grinned, and the game was on. She knew a spell to skate on water (even if she had to use an incantation for that one). I read several books on duelling, and I could recognize a form here and there, or the most obvious spell chains. She made little use of our surroundings, but maybe it was because we were on water and veelas have a natural affinity for fire.
I was staying still with my eyes closed, trying to actively replicate Gaara's absolute defence using water.
It was like juggling: keeping control of the water under my feet, listening to the sparks that were her spells, raising the water to intercept said spells. From time to time I had to freeze the water before it was hit because her spells would have punched through.
I was brute-forcing the water into compliance, not leading it with the smooth approach I preferred to adopt. At her snarl of frustration, I thought I had shown enough.
I briefly considered if I should try to use that side effect of anti-apparition wards to compress space in a way that would make her spell slightly turn around me, but I choose to keep that particular trick up my sleeve.
I opened my lone eye watching her for a minute more, before slashing my wand with the intent to disrupt the surface of water. Fleur fell like a puppet with its strings cut.
Half an hour later she calmed down and we were having another lovely chat about magic.
The day of the second task we were all waiting on the lake, and I was donning a two-way mirror on my forehead.
It was two-inch wide and one inch high, linked to one of four giant floating mirrors that would allow the crowd to observe the task from the champion point of view.
I sent Raven to play riddles with Flitwick, since obviously, they kidnapped Luna. I was irked, but knowing her, she would probably find sleeping among mermaids and mermen quite the fascinating experience. When they told us we could begin, the one-armed Krum performed his half-shark self-transfiguration, Potter swallowed gillyweed, and Fleur went with a bubblehead charm.
I however, had no intention to get myself wet only because I had to dive to the bottom of the lake. I skated on the water until I felt I was more or less over the bracelet I gifted Luna years before. The fire of those who were family would also call to other family members if they let themselves listen. I slashed my hand in an upward arc, encasing myself in a cocoon of water, before turning it into ice, and charming it to be crystal clear. Twirling my hand, a little whirlpool swallowed my spherical-like submarine.
While going down, I conjured my Patronus to both have light and to reduce the spooking element of a giant ball of ice rushing down to crash on your village. I didn't want to hurt the half-fish people. Once I reached the bottom, I stuck the submarine down with a sticking charm. The deeper you are, the heavier the mass of water above you is, and the harder is to manipulate it in any way.
While my albatross kept flying in circles around the hostages, I moved around loose rocks, building a pipe with a 2 meters long diameter.
I used an easy transmutation to bend the rocks in a cohesive mass and vanished the water inside it. At this point in time I had an umbilical cord that linked the outside of my submarine to Luna.
I threw an impervious at it to make sure water couldn't enter it and opened the side of my submarine. I walked toward Luna, facing the last snag, keeping a Lumos floating over my head. I had to be fast.
With a twitch of my wand I freed my young friend from her bindings. The problem now was that I built the rocky pipe so it would keep the water out.
Luna would be soaking wet, and dragging her into my construct would cause my enchantment to react to it as a permission to let water in.
I was on the bottom of a lake, that was a terrible idea.
I kept Luna on the edge of the pipe, before retreating a couple of meters inside of it.
I covered the entire thing with cushioning charms.
I turned the humidity into an ice wall inside the pipe, keeping it between me and the exit, before snapping the enchantment on the end of the umbilical cord.
Luna and water flowed in and the air bubbled out. I closed the end of the pipe, before turning the ice wall into steam and vanishing the water that was about to rush down the rocky umbilical cord. Luna awoke in the moment her head was no longer encased in water.
She didn't miss a beat.
"Hello David Taylor."
I cast a warming charm at her. "Hello Luna Lovegood." I answered, "Do you want to see an icy submarine?" I led her into the ice structure, before closing the 'door' to the pipe and collapsing it.
I broke the sticking charm and let us float upwards with my Patronus unravelling and the light of the day calling us. I distractedly recognized she was humming 'Yellow submarine' by the Beatles. I have honestly no idea about how she knew it. Once on the surface, the ice sphere turned into a boat that led us to the starting point.
Krum completed his task in thirty minutes, with an incomplete piece of transfiguration, and a bite that scratched Granger's leg.
35points.
Fleur completed her task in thirty-seven minutes, with a bubblehead charm that failed along the way and an enchantment woven on the fly on a piece of cloth that brought her through the task.
46 points.
Harry Potter completed the task in an hour and fifteen minutes, because for some reason he waited around the hostages.
He used gillyweed and two insignificant spells, along with a knife, and received an indication? from miss Warren ghost.
36 points.
I had been my usual kickass self.
I completed the task in 45 minutes, with a splendid use of transfiguration, charms, alchemy. I displayed a not conventional use of the Patronus and took a moment to ensure my hostage was warm and unhurt.
40 points.
So, Krum was last with 60 points, Fleur was first with 92, Potter in second place with 82, and I was third with 73.
Luna gave me a mermaid hair as thanks for having saved her.
I didn't even try to imagine how she obtained it.
Raven ate a blue beetle and I threw her a party.