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Harry, Ron, and Hermione walked over to the north end of the grounds for the first task. Harry couldn't remember anything being over there - it was just some gently rolling hills. But when the three got close, they gasped. Instead of grass, it was barren land with gigantic rocks and ancient architecture dotting the ground. It looked like an ancient city that had been abandoned thousands of years ago.
"Wow, they did all that decoration for the task!" said Hermione. It seemed kind of odd, but the 'decoration' served great as a sort of obstacle field for a person to hide in. In the middle, Dumbledore was surveying his work, and then almost as an afterthought, he clapped his hands and added a large series of spectator stands. Ron, Hermione, and Harry decided to have a seat and wait for the event to start.
"Wait a minute. I thought that only the champion and headmaster were staying here at Hogwarts. Where are the other guardians at?" Harry asked.
"Harry, don't be stupid. They're obviously just coming up for the day," Ron answered.
It wasn't long before the stands started to fill up. Fred and George noticed the three of them and joined them. Pretty soon the five of them would have to stop the Durmstrang and Beauxbatons champions from reaching their flag.
"Welcome," boomed the magnified voice of Richard Joel, "to the first task of this year's Triwizard Tournament. Each champion will have to retrieve their flag at the opposite end of the field. Standing in their way are 10 guardians that have been selected by the other two champions. The only two rules are no invisibility and no dark arts. The first champion to compete will be Hogwart's Alicia Spinnet!" At this Harry, Ron, Hermione, Fred, and George sat back down to watch Alicia perform. The other 10 guardians got up from the stands and stood by a flapping flag bearing the Hogwarts seal of arms. Richard Joel got up on a broomstick, and started riding high above the action. There was going to be no chance of a repeat of last year's events in the maze.
"Don't worry," Hermione said to the other guardians, "Alicia and I have run through some ideas for her to use. She'll do great."
"Begin!" shouted Joel. Alicia immediately ran to the right side of the field. After hiding behind a large pillar, she pointed her wand to the left side. Harry wondered what she was doing. Suddenly, area she pointed to erupt into what appeared to be a wand firefight. Curses seemed to be flying left and right, but he couldn't see anyone casting them.
"Ingenious," Ron muttered.
"You're not the only one who can be ingenious, Ron. Like my suggestion?" Hermione looked smug.
Ron and Hermione gazed at each other for a brief second, before realizing what was going on. Meanwhile, it didn't look good for Alicia. Although most of the guardians were fooled into believing that Alicia was engaged in a spectacular spell battle, one of the guardians second guessed her, and was prowling the right side instead.
Alicia spotted him first, however. One Stupify spell later, and the Durmstrang team only had 4 guardians. Alicia seemed to have more on her mind, though.
"She's stripping him?" whispered Harry in disbelief.
"Just watch," Hermione giggled. Alicia took off the Durmstrang's robe and swapped it for her own. When she was finished, she dragged the stunned, Gryffindor dressed Durmstrang guardian out of view. Alicia gathered herself, and then slowly 'patrolled' towards the flag. She made it about two thirds of the way to the flag before one of the Durmstrang guardians noticed that their friend was suddenly a female. Thinking quick, Alicia dodged his Stupefy spell, and fired off a quick tongue-tying hex.
"Sweeths Hea! Sweeths Hea! Flard thee Gag!!" screamed on the hapless Durmstang guardian. One of the Beauxbatons guardians quickly went to help the screaming guardian, now yelling "Schtoppuh!" Another guardian saw Alicia pelting towards the flag, carefully aimed their wand, and let off their own stunning spell. Alicia collapsed 2 meters from the flag, amidst groaning from the Hogwarts section. However, the groaning was quick, as the Hogwarts students realized how well she did and started cheering loudly. The cheering died down as the judges prepared their scores.
Alexander Kalin rose and his wand puffed out a giant 9. Harry quietly thanked fate that the Durmstrang headmaster was fairer than last year.
Dumbledore stood up and gave another 9. Madame Maxime gave a 10, which frankly astounded Harry. Percy gave a 9, and Richard Joel gave a 10. The crowd burst into applause. Harry could see Alicia beaming down below, but couldn't congratulate her as he had to get down to the flag.
As Harry was walking down with the other 4 Hogwarts guardians, Joel's voice announced that Petrina Ivanov, from Durmstrang, was next. He watched closely as Petrina walked onto the field and disappeared among the clutter.
On Joel's command to start, Harry started prowling towards the other end when his eyes, trained from being a seeker, noticed something odd. Something was approaching the stands, very fast, from the castle. Harry squinted, and picked out the unmistakable outline of a broomstick. Harry smiled, then muttered 'Accio Firebolt' When Harry's broom arrived, he immediately set off into the air.
He circled in the air, looking for any sign of Petrina. He finally saw her skirting around the rocks at low altitude. Harry stopped, and aimed a Stunning spell at her. It barely missed her, going a tad to the front-left. Petrina looked up and saw Harry, and did something unexpected. She shot straight towards him. Harry got over his shock quickly, and shot another stunning spell at her.
Petrina dodged at the last minute, banked sharply under him, and cast her own stunning spell. Harry zoomed to the side, dodging the spell, and veering directly behind her. Petrina began turnng at sharp angles and shooting an occasional spell behind her to try to dislodge Harry. But Harry kept right behind her, and was working on casting Impediment upon her. Harry wondered why nobody else was trying to hit her, and then realized that they were afraid of hitting him instead. He also noticed that Petrina wasn't trying to get away from him, and she wasn't trying too hard to stun him anymore. He then saw that they were circling steadily closer to the flag. His suspicions were confirmed, as Petrina suddenly broke off and made a break for the flag. Harry immediately stopped, and took careful aim with one last stunning spell. Like Alicia, Petrina was hit from behind and dropped unconscious, falling off her broomstick. Harry immediately shouted 'Corpus Leviosa', to prevent her from hitting the ground. Ron was next to her within seconds, and ended the round. Harry was exhilarated. That was even better than trying to find the snitch. Maybe he should ask Ron if they wanted to have a mid-air duel sometime.
There was cheering for the Durmstrang effort, but it was a bit quieter than the applause for the Hogwarts champion. Petrina didn't get as close as Alicia did.
The judges seemed to notice this as well. Although Kalin gave another 9, Dumbledore, Percy, and Joel gave 8's, and Madame Maxime went so far as to give a 7. Petrina walked off, somewhat dejected, where some of the Slytherins tried to cheer her up.
"And the last champion," boomed Joel, "is Jean DeGalle from Beauxbatons." After the 5 Hogwarts guardians resumed their places by the flag (now bearing two wands emitting stars), they were joined by the Durmstrang guardians. Harry hoped they wouldn't resort to dark arts.
Harry's mind raced. He wanted to use the Firebolt, but Jean would probably be expecting that. I'd be a sitting duck in the air if he spotted me first. The he got the idea of using it the same way Petrina did, by skirting the ground. Soon, Harry was at the other end of the field, probably very close to the Beauxbatons champion. He decided to hide the firebolt and patrol on land, hopefully catching the champion from behind by surprise. However, he had only walked a few paces before he noticed a large hole in the ground, about two meters wide. He peered cautiously inside, and saw how it curved off towards the flag.
Harry immiately ran back towards his firebolt, and took off. He flew fast back to the flag, and found Hermione. "Hermione, quick, grab my arm!" Harry urged. Hermione did so, and Harry lifted off on his broom, with Hermione screaming. When Harry landed at the other end again, Hermione hit him in the arm, and shook out her hand.
"Knock it off, Hermione. The champion is burrowing their way their way to the flag," Harry said urgently.
Hermione grinned for a moment - why hadn't she thought of that for Alicia - but spoke "I'll conjure some sleeping gas. You blow it down the hole."
Harry nodded, and they both took places next to the hole. Harry watched her point her wand at the hole, and some greenish gas starting coming from nowhere. Harry quickly cast a fanning charm, which blew the gas down into the hole. After a few minutes, Hermione said, "Well, one of us needs to go down there and get him."
Harry nodded again, donned the same bubblehead charm he used his second class with Fleur, and jumped into the hole. It was dark, but Harry resisted using Lumos to find the way. If Jean was still awake, he wanted to catch him unaware. Harry didn't need to worry. A few minutes later, he heard a large snoring sound; Jean DeGalle was asleep at the end of the tunnel. Harry gently took his wand from his hand and woke him. Jean seemed disappointed, until Harry pointed out that they found him by pure luck, and that even Hermione was impressed by his approach. Jean smiled, nodded, and grabbed his wand back. Harry was worried that Jean would stun him and continue digging until Jean pointed his wand at the roof of the tunnel blasted a hole to the surface. Harry and Jean climbed the hole, to meet the puzzled expressions of Fred and George. Jean and Harry couldn't help but laugh, and made their way to the judges table.
After announcing that the distance from the flag was 60 meters, Joel made a giant 7. Kalin, possibly a little stung by Madame Maxime's 7 for the Durmstrang champion, put out a giant 6. Madame Maxime glared at him, made a giant 8. Dumbledore held out 8 as well. Percy looked at the Durmstrang and Beauxbatons headmasters, staring angrily at each other, and held out a 7. Harry snorted. Trust Percy to take the middle road.
Joel's voice rose over the crowd again, "The final scores for the 1st task are: In 3rd place, Beauxbatons with 36 points. 2nd place, Durmstrang with 40 points. And in 1st place, Hogwarts, with 47 points!" At this, the majority of the stands burst into cheering. Harry's ears hurt, and for once was glad that Slytherin wasn't cheering for them too hard. If they were, he'd probably be deaf.
Of course, if Harry thought the cheering then was bad, he probably should've skipped the celebration in the commons room. Alicia was living it up, regaling everyone about how she got past all the Durmstrang and Beauxbatons guardians. When she got to the part about the Durmstrang champion yelling "Sweeths Hea! Sweeths Hea!" everyone howled with laughter.
Harry was slowly making his way for the 5th years' dormitory, when Alicia loudly shouted, "Enough about my round! What happened with the guardians?" Everyone's eyes turned to Harry. He then realized that he played the largest role, and would probably be wrangled into telling everyone what happened.
Sure enough, George immediately called, "Ask Harry. He got all the excitement," after which he winked at Harry. Harry sighed. He tried to downplay the second round, barely skimming the mid-air duel. Of course, that was the part everyone was dying to hear, so Fred and George made him tell it in a blow-by-blow fashion. Fortunately, the third round was not quite as exciting, so Harry managed to escape with only a ten minute account. However, he did manage to give Hermione the spotlight a bit, as it was her spell that incapacitated the champion, as well as her memorable ride on the broomstick. When Harry told that part, everyone laughed, and Hermione hit him again.
Just when Harry thought he'd get to bed, he was blocked by Ron. "Why did you grab Hermione, and not me that last round?" he demanded.
"She was closer. She was the first guardian I saw," Harry lied. He certainly wasn't about to tell Ron that he got Hermione because she was far better at summoning charms than he was. Of course, she was better at them than anyone else (at least after she worked hard to surpass Harry), but Ron was always a little touchy about Hermione knowing more than him.
Finally, Harry managed to slip into bed and get some sleep.
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I decided since this chapter turned out to only be the first task, I'd put in another one real quick. And as luck would have it, it's where Harry gets hitched up. Hooyeah!
I'm glad everyone that reviewed liked the Irish Drinking Song! Personally, I love 'Whose Line'
Thanks all who have reviewed, especially Atheis & Aeris and Avid Reader!
Review! Please?