The Treasure Hunter.
As he stood outside the room Ludo Bagman was staying in at the school - Harry dimly wondered why on Earth the man was staying on at the school; surely he had a home or a place where he could stay, rather than treat the castle as a rent-free hotel since he would only need to come out once in a while on matters relating to the Tournament, otherwise, he would likely be mostly bored out of his mind, but he decided to not worry about it too much - Harry prepared himself for the upcoming confrontation with Bagman.
The man struck him more as a bombastic showman, more than anyone with any actual brains or common sense, but Harry had learnt a long time ago never to judge anyone based on their attitudes or their appearance.
He had learnt there was more to Snape's stupid grudge than what he knew, thanks to Lily's memories. But more importantly thanks to those memories, he had learnt never to judge people too much based on their appearances, or their personality. Harry hadn't thought much of Ron Weasley, but while some of the redheads' ideas were infantile and simple, he knew Weasley was capable of a lot more besides. Why should Bagman be an exception? In any case, he had noted the former Quidditch player's calculating interest in him; Bagman was not subtle, he had been sending Harry looks for a short while now, but Harry had just ignored them although he had noticed.
After the….entertainment of seeing Malfoy and Snape put in their place, and Hogwarts virtually humiliated due to Dumbledore's head being stuck in the clouds, Harry had decided to keep his head down for a bit while he concentrated on getting through the Tournament. He knew that Malfoy and Snape would be gunning for him because of how he'd embarrassed them both, but he was more concerned about the upcoming tasks. There was a rule stated within the Triwizard Tournament that the participants need not attend lessons unless they wished, and they could perform self-studying lessons instead in order to achieve the best possible outcome in the tasks.
Harry was thankful for the legal loophole, although truthfully he had been planning on simply bunking all but a select few of his classes to do the same job. The teachers at Hogwarts may have known their stuff despite being totally incapable and inept at preventing or recognising the signs their students were out of control, and while the foreign teachers taught at a totally different level compared to teachers like McGonagall or Flitwick, Harry wanted to begin his own self-study lessons. And the best thing was he could do it and he could gladly and easily get away with it.
He had gone up to McGonagall just after one of his classes with her, and he had told her straight that he was going to perform self-study lessons although he would attend lessons occasionally. The old witch had tried to stop him, and predictably she had tried to take him to Dumbledore, but in the end, Harry had shown her the Triwizard rules before she could take it too far, and she had relented. Thankfully she had told the other teachers about what he was going to be doing and they'd accepted it, although he had caught more than a few looks over the last two weeks.
The two weeks gave him a lot of unexpected free time.
Harry was spending a lot of that time studying and investigating the Room of Requirement, seeking out some of the old books there in order to diversify his spell knowledge, and exploring some of the school in turn. Harry had made the wise decision of seeking out the goblins, and locating some tutors who were willing to teach him advanced forms of magic in the fields taught at Hogwarts. He found a small number of African wizards, who came from Uagadou School of Magic, a school where the students practiced self-transfiguration and became animagi at the age of fourteen years old. While Harry still attended a few of the lessons McGonagall hosted at Hogwarts, he had quickly discovered the lessons from the Africans, who came from a part of the world who were of a much higher level than the level McGonagall taught.
He also found, thanks to the goblins, teachers for charms, runes, and even potions - the last one had reinvigorated his previous fascination with the subject; one of the many things he had always despised about Snape, and he was certain he was not the only one to feel this way, was how quickly and easily the greasy teacher had put him off of the subject when it had been so fascinating to him - and he received a much higher level of knowledge in all of the subjects.
Whenever he had gone into the lessons at Hogwarts, Harry made sure to remember his previous plans and stopped himself from revealing his new knowledge, but it was close.
At the same time, Harry was doing his level best to discover what the tasks were going to become. In the end, he had little luck; his usual methods for gathering information had dried up. It was like the school itself was not talking, so Harry had come to see Bagman as the perfect choice to get answers from. Slipping his wand out of his pocket and keeping it close at hand - it might be Moody's paranoia speaking about 'constant vigilance' but Harry knew little about Bagman, and what the other wizard was capable of - Harry took a deep breath, and he knocked on the door. Thanks to the Marauder's Map, he knew the older wizard was inside. He had looked before he had come here.
The door opened and the portly form of Ludo Bagman stood in the doorway.
Bagman's expression brightened visibly when he saw who it was who was visiting him. "Harry! Come in, come in! I was hoping you'd come to ask for help!"
As he followed Bagman into the suite he'd been given for the duration of the Tournament, Harry quirked a brow; why did he feel Bagman was a pervert for thinking that?
"You were?"
Bagman turned, a look of confusion passing over his face. Somehow it seemed to be right at home there, much like the expression of gormless stupidity Fudge wore on his face. "Why, yes," he said like it was obvious while he sat down, and gestured for the younger wizard to sit down himself. "I mean, you're ill-prepared for the Tournament, unlike your competitors, I figured you might need help."
"I'm thankful for that, Mr Bagman," Harry said, trying to conceal his annoyance Bagman implied he believed he was incapable of anything, and he made up his mind about when to act; he had planned to attack Bagman after lulling him into a false sense of security. "Believe me. Actually, I do need help. You see I've been spending the last few days trying to discover what the Tasks are," he went on, putting emphasis on the plural form tasks rather than refer to the First Task, "I want you to tell me what the Tasks are."
Bagman's expression had been turning solemn with each word which had come from Harry's mouth, and he looked especially deflated by the time Harry had finished. "I'm afraid I can't help you, Harry. I'm sorry. To tell you would be to cheat the Tournament, and I can't do that."
Harry snorted. "Oh please; do you think I've been sitting on my backside for the last few days? I have been studying the Tournament's history. I know full well cheating has been part of the Tournament since time immemorial. It's become tradition, and who am I to judge? I need all the edges I can get because you see, I want to live my life without people pushing me into stupid games like this. And you are going to help me, Ludo Bagman."
Harry's voice had been growing darker and more solemn with each syllable, and Bagman had been growing more and more agitated. He was slowly becoming more aware this young wizard was not as he seemed. And it frightened him. Harry Potter was supposed to be the icon of the light side, a good person.
The boy in front of him seemed more threatening.
Ludo managed to push aside some of his frightened facade, but he knew some of it had bled out for Potter to notice, and he cursed himself for never once taking occlumency training and practice seriously. "I..'m sorry, Harry, but I can't."
Harry sighed. "A shame, Mr Bagman," the teenager replied with frank regret that Ludo could not help but feel it was genuine. That faded as soon as the boy's hand flicked and Ludo saw nothing but a bright flash of magical light, and then he fell unconscious…
X
Looking at the slumped body of Ludo Bagman made Harry rub his face. He hadn't initially planned on taking this kind of action towards Bagman, he had hoped the older wizard would truly not care much about the rules, but apparently, he did for some reason. He had hoped for a different solution, hoped Bagman would be reasonable.
But clearly not.
Harry had not liked how Bagman had patronised him, and he had detected a snivelling attitude he instantly detested when Bagman had yakked on about rules, but Harry knew he had made a mistake. He had allowed some of his annoyance to slip in and Ludo Bagman had quailed. In the end, he hadn't had any choice but to stun the other wizard.
Sighing, Harry took out the bottle of veritaserum - he had stolen some of it from Snape's stores for this very night, just as a precaution in case Bagman caused problems and if he felt the older wizard was not telling him the truth - and very gently, he walked over to the body of the portly wizard, forcing Bagman to open his mouth, and very gently he poured the three drops of potion on the tip of Bagman's tongue before massaging the wizard's throat so he swallowed and he then woke Bagman up.
To his relief, the wizard's eyes were glazed over, as the potion had taken effect. Good. He had been worried the potion would not be effective with Bagman unconscious, but it seemed he had been worrying about nothing. Harry smirked inwardly for a moment before he got down to basics.
"What's your name?"
Once the basic questioning was out of the way, Harry got started.
"What are the tasks of the Triwizard Tournament?" He asked while he set up a dicta quill, some ink, and some parchment.
"The first task involves the Champion getting a Golden Egg from a nesting mother dragon," Bagman's voice sounded vague like he was high.
A dragon?
"Did you just say a dragon?"
"Yes."
Harry rubbed his face. He had known for some time now the wizarding world was thick, now he had proof. Didn't they realise how lucky it would be for any of the champions to get through this insanity? "Who came up with the idea of having dragons involved?"
"It was mine, and endorsed by Albus Dumbledore."
Dumbledore? Oh wow, the man is even more insane and senile than I first guessed. "How many dragons are coming?" Harry asked, desperately hoping the answer was just the one; he knew enough about dragons to keep as far from them as possible, along with manticores, and after his encounter with the one individual in his second year, basilisks unless he was deliberately hunting them down for their ingredients.
"Three were originally scheduled, but when your name was entered into the Goblet of Fire, a fourth had to be brought in on short notice."
"What kind of dragons are coming?" Harry asked next, thinking if he had some kind of idea of what was coming, he could better prepare for the worst of it…
"I don't know," Bagman replied.
"Why not?" Harry was taking advantage of him now.
"All we wanted were nesting mother dragons from a reserve; I didn't see what difference it made of what species they were. I will soon find out as soon as they arrive."
Putting aside his annoyance of Bagman's nonchalance, for the time being, the news the dragons weren't here yet brought him some time to prepare.
"When are they coming?" Harry asked.
"The dragons should be here in a week's time."
"Where will they be kept on the Hogwarts grounds?" Damn it, why is Veritaserum good, but absolutely useless at getting people to provide straight answers? Harry thought to himself while he logically surmised that, in order to keep the crowd surprised, the dragons would be kept housed somewhere where no-body would see them.
He was right.
"There is a clearing some ways from the Whomping Willow; it's large, heavily forested so the students won't notice," Bagman said.
Harry sighed, glancing over his shoulder at the small table where the dicta-quill was still writing; it was paused now, but the enchanted quill was waiting to be used again. However, he was more focused on what was going to happen in the Tournament. Bagman had said something about an egg.
"Tell me about this Golden Egg, what is it?"
From Ludo Bagman, Harry acquired a huge amount of information about the Triwizard Tournament. It all looked fairly straightforward enough, but Harry had learnt the hard way when it came to the magical world, there was simply no such thing as straightforward because there was always something around to fuck the whole thing up; retrieve the Golden Egg from a dragon which so happened to contain the clue to the next task, and thanks to Bagman Harry didn't need the Golden Egg for that; as one of the organisers of the stupid thing, Bagman knew every detail of the plan for the Tournament, a far cry from the careless demeanour of the man who was so bombastic and flamboyant.
After the First Task, Harry and the other so-called Champions of this stupid Tournament were expected to dance with partners; and so long as there was no conflict among them, some of the partners would be used as hostages and placed in the lake where they would be guarded by the merpeople who lived at the bottom and then retrieved them. For that to work, Harry would need to find some way of breathing underwater and it would need to be versatile enough to get him down to the bottom of the lake, and back again.
When the time limit of the truth potion crept closer and closer, Harry decided to leave it all for now; he felt he had gotten more than enough information about the Tournament, at least for the moment. Harry tried to think of anything else he could ask the rapidly detoxing wizard, but he found nothing. Harry flicked his wand in the end when he was sure he had gotten what he had needed, silently cancelling the effects of the potion and with another flick, he knocked Bagman unconscious and wiped his memory; the last thing he needed was Dumbledore catching wind of what he had been doing, but he didn't want the DMLE coming, either.
Picking up his things, Harry left the room.
He had a lot of studying to do.
XXX
Harry was thankful for whoever came up with warming charms; one of the things he liked about the wizarding world's use of magic to answer everyday problems was just simplistic people were, and while some might consider it to be thoughtless and automatic, to Harry it was still a good thing, especially at this time of night and when it was so fucking cold. He sometimes wondered if the Founders had chosen this particular spot to put their precious school because they liked Scotland, or if they believed a cold school would inspire them to come up with more simple ideas for solving problems like the cold.
Thanks to Bagman's information, it had actually been easy to find the clearing; there were only so many places near the Whomping Willow that were out of the way enough not to be noticeable by the rest of the school, and it hadn't taken Harry long to find the clearing Bagman had described. Anyway, once he had found it, he could easily see why Dumbledore and the others had chosen it; it was large, further away from the school, and thanks to the proximity of the Whomping Willow which nobody in their right mind would be brave enough to go near, the clearing was relatively quiet.
Harry had been watching this clearing for the last few days, waiting for the dragons to arrive although he had also been checking through the library for information relating to dragons, particularly nesting ones, and trying to seek out ways of breathing underwater. He was actually surprised by how far his research had gone, he had assumed the information would be harder to come by, but it wasn't.
He had already narrowed down some of the breathing options.
Self transfiguration was out; while he was good at Transfiguration, he didn't have the advanced skills needed to perform such an advanced transformation on himself, and he was not keen on trying it out. He knew how dangerous it was, and after reading through some of the books he had found already, which detailed some very potent…and very highly unpleasant accidents, it was one thing he did not want to even attempt.
The bubble-head charm had been a possibility. It was simple to cast, easy to maintain, and it was capable of enclosing air around a human's head, but at the same time, it was just as problematic. The bubble-head charm enclosed air around a human's head, and once that air was trapped it was the only air the caster had before it ran down.
What would happen then?
Simple, you drowned.
Even worse, the bubble itself was as vulnerable as the soap bubbles you got with fairy washing up liquid while cleaning up after dinner; they popped if burst, and it was just the same with the bubble-head charm. What if by accident one of the merpeople at the bottom of the lake pricked his bubble while underwater? At that depth, he would never be able to reach the surface, although he knew he wouldn't be able to thanks to his recent experience in the Caribbean.
No, he wanted something that was more durable, something good, easy to understand but something which didn't have any long-term side-effects.
And he had found it in a wonderful plant known as Gillyweed. It was a magical plant that, when ingested, provided gills and altered the eyes and skin to make the consumer as amphibious as a frog or a fish. He had found his ace in the hole with the Second Task, and the best thing was he didn't need some stupid egg to tell him what to do, but he knew he would need to play the stupid game of the judges just to keep them off his back.
In any case, he enjoyed a challenge, so he would participate.
As he waited in the clearing, unseen he ate a few pieces of chocolate to stave off boredom and hunger, Harry ran a hand through his hair in frustration as he checked his watch. He had been out here for two hours always, and he was starting to think that, as with the last few nights, tonight was going to be a dud, just like the others. With that in mind, Harry was about to turn around and collect his broomstick to return to the castle, when he heard something in the distance. His heart pounding in his chest, he turned around and looked up into the sky. He took out of his pocket the same collapsable telescope he used in astronomy lessons, and he looked out through the eyepiece, squinting as he tried to focus.
There!
In the distance was a cluster of figures on broomsticks, they were surrounding four large crates, cages and little jets of flame coming from the bars; their shape was becoming more and more distinct, and Harry spotted more and more figures on broomsticks. But as he watched them fly, Harry saw something else. While there were strong and large chains that were likely magical, or magically supported, given how they didn't weigh down the wizards on the brooms, the wizards were able to guide the cages containing the dragons while flying around them in formation.
He was reminded of that view from a satellite, hovering above the Earth in a high orbit, showing the bits of space junk that came from the numerous space missions undertaken since the day Sputnik first went into space; there were dozens of people flying on broomsticks around the free-floating cages, surrounding and guiding them closer to the ground.
The wizards were incredibly careful to guide their massive charges. Not one of them even thought of flying off, and as he looked through the telescope he was holding, Harry saw each of the flying wizards and witches were holding their wands, watching each of them carefully. After a moment he saw not one of them look away, not one of them lowered their wands.
The whole operation was dangerous, difficult, and they knew not to take their eyes off of the cages, and as they came closer Harry could hear the dragons' enraged roars and growls. More than once, he spotted the cages vibrate as the dragons tried valiantly and desperately to free themselves. The dragons were likely incandescent with rage at their treatment, and being ferried around instead of freely travelling under their own power.
As if on cue, voices from nearby made him look around, and Harry spotted the tall, flamboyant figure of Dumbledore striding into the clearing, his long robes and his white hair and beard glinting in the moonlight, followed by the enormous form of Hagrid, the figures of McGonagall, Flitwick, Sprout, Moody and Snape. All of them barring Hagrid had their wands out, and they quickly formed a party to help the wizards bringing the dragons in.
They were soon joined by Karkaroff, Maxime, both foreign headteachers escorted by a few of their staff, Crouch, and Bagman. Once the Hogwarts party were joined by the others, Harry decided it was pointless to hang around anymore. He couldn't get too close without being seen, although he knew he could put on a spell, it was risky with so many out there who were highly alert. He knew the dragons were here, and he could come back some other time.
With that in mind, Harry turned and walked away to a safe distance before he got back on board his broom and flew back to the castle. He had a lot of planning to do.
Author's note - I hope you've enjoyed this chapter. Writing the part with Ludo Bagman came when I thought Bagman had offered to give Harry help, so why not take it to that level?
