New reveal! You can see her in the picture. More in the end notes.

Chapter 6 – Dragon? Where?

Loud noises coming from the crowd filled Harry's eardrums. He vaguely heard Bagman shouting something from the commentator seat, but he was too shocked by the change in the atmosphere that he wasn't registering his speech at all. Gone was the quiet tent with a noise-canceling charm. Such an overwhelmingly strong cacophony of sounds made him stumble and nearly miss the dragon he was walking towards. Just about, it was hard to ignore what he saw in the other part of the arena. The sheer size of the dragon intimidated him.

"And here comes the last but not least contestant. The one and only Harry Potter!" yelled Bagman, his voice projected all over the arena. The crowd cheered with him, surprising Harry a fair bit. If he had to guess, Slytherins cheered for his demise instead of well wishes, but he expected way less support in there. It made not much difference to him, but he appreciated it nonetheless. Harry was all on his own here, much different from having a quidditch match with teammates around. Oh, how he missed those easy days.

Harry reached the enclosure with unsure and timid steps. There, sitting at the far sight, posing menacingly, crouched low over her clutch of eggs, was the dragon. And what a dangerous tail she had, trashing it around in anger, leaving marks on the dirty rocky ground. Harry gulped, suddenly feeling much more apprehensive. Bagman was shouting and riling the crowd, but Harry barely paid him any attention, fully focused on the beast before his eyes.

Through his shaky nerves, Harry registered a whistle, signaling the start of the task. Gritting his teeth, Harry pushed himself forward and lifted his wand. He was calm and collected. He was ready.

Nope. He was not. As soon as Harry saw the dragon move, he stepped to the side, watching the dragon carefully behind the rock cover as it surprisingly did nothing dangerous at all. The dragon just moved her legs and switched position of her body to stare head-on toward Harry. Not the most Gryffindorish thing he had done, but he wanted to live. He was almost seeing the dragon leaping toward him. Well hidden behind a small rock, Harry looked at the dragon again. Hungarian Horntail tracked his movement perfectly, her head following in Harry's direction, but made no further moves, only correcting her stance. The dragon was very defensive and wasn't looking in any hurry to attack. But it all made sense, protecting her eggs was surely her priority, not chasing away the intruder. It made Harry's task all the harder. He had to make her move from the spot.

Harry saw no way to get closer without being burned to a crisp or punched by her tail. The crowd booed at his lack of actions, but Harry only mentally cursed at them. They weren't here risking their lives in a bloody sport. Harry calmed his breath, peeked again, and with a deciding move, moved past the cover, wand ready, yet not raised.

"§I came in peace! Hear me out!" hissed Harry loudly in what he thought was a parseltongue, trying to imagine the dragon's head looking more like a basilisk. He had to admit, the giant snake was actually more terrifying than the dragon, still, similarities were aplenty. The lack of death glare didn't make the dragon less of a threat. The chances of parseltongue working were slim to none, but he had to try. The dragon agreed with his low changes assessment, sending a stream of hot flames in his direction as an answer. Even the tribune grew silent as he hid once again. Why? Everybody knew he could speak to snakes, so it wasn't like he had done something new. Oh, the loudest of them all, Bagman didn't know that. It would explain the pause in the commentary. Whatever.

§"One of the eggs is fake!" tried again Harry after a short pause hiding behind the rock, noticing that one of the eggs was not like the others in the clutch and shined golden colours. Getting the same answer once again, he gave up. His cover behind the rock was getting uncomfortably hot and scorched. Harry wasn't sure how long it would hold on against the flames. He shuddered, thinking about what it would feel like if that fire touched him directly.

No books mentioned anything about dragons speaking parseltongue, but it was worth the shot. Parseltongue was super rare and shrouded in a negative light, Harry hoped that it could be simply undocumented. Apparently not, or maybe she did not hear him through the ongoing loud noises of spectators, or a plethora of other reasons. He simply had no time to wonder why it failed. Plan A clearly didn't work, he expected that it wouldn't. It was time to test the spells.

"Tumesco oculis!" shouted Harry, full of vigor as he jumped from the cover and hit the dragon. He had high hopes for this spell, but it felt harmlessly on her leg, far from her eyes. Undeterred, Harry stepped forward, keeping his momentum as the dragon was yet to respond.

"Expulso!" yelled Harry different curse. This one was supposed to blast the dragon. Hungarian Horntail roared fiercely in reaction and stood on her hind legs as this curse hit her on the side, not noticeably moving her back at all, only making the dragon angrier. Harry hurriedly jumped to the side as a stream of extremely hot flames scorched the place he was just a second ago. He missed the rock's cover already.

"Tumesco oculis! Confringo!" shouted Harry in quick succession as he jumped around, trying to avoid the flames. Conjunctivitis curse passed harmlessly close to Dragon's head as she trashed her tail threateningly against the ground and Harry guessed the second curse was too poorly constructed to do anything useful. He had only a few days to learn them, after all. Harry moved to the side once again, feeling heat toward his left side, part of his robe left smoking and in a noticeably darker shade. This wasn't going well. Horntail was not moving away from the clutch at all and shutting her eyes was proving to be an impossible task to do when he was unable to hit the eye in the first place. He needed to be more agile, and target better.

"Damn it," muttered Harry as he retreated further, toward the edge of the arena, near the spectators' stand. The dragon kept posing threateningly, but Harry was far away from direct danger unless she leaped toward him and left her clutch. Harry kept one eye on the dragon, and the other on the spectators, trying to find Ginny among them. She should be there somewhere but trying to find her was proving quite difficult. Too many people were blocking his sight and he couldn't locate her. He would have to wing it and hope for the best. Or he could try that option first.

"Accio Golden Egg!" shouted Harry as he flicked his wand toward the dragon. He waited for a few bated breaths, but nothing happened. Yeah. The expected outcome, but it was frustrating nonetheless. If the organizers left some loophole in there, this wasn't it. Happened with the whole name coming from the Goblet, after all, so he had no high opinion on the competency of these people. Harry looked at the tribunes and found a familiar banner fluttering, shared between multiple people, and smiled at the sight. It was good to know someone cared.

"Ginny! Accio Firebolt!" shouted Harry as he cast the spell in that general direction. Harry hoped she was somewhere close to his Quidditch teammates, as he could not spot her among the crowd, despite her quite rare color of hair.

For one painfully long moment, everything was still, even the dragon, but then Harry saw the broom in the corner of his eye speeding toward him. Feeling elated at the prospect of holding his broom once again, he reached his hand to catch it as it neared him. Suddenly the hair on Harry's neck stood up and Harry jumped on instinct honed by the years of running from Dudley's gang and the many dangerous situations he found himself in Hogwarts. It was at this moment he knew he fucked up. He let go of keeping eyes on the dragon.

Harry clasped his hand around the broom practically by feel while mid-jump and with a great pull, he climbed himself into it. Just in time, too. The stream of fire and hot winds followed him as he took flight. Harry looked back at the ground where he was a moment ago and where a deep ridge lay. Dragon's tail narrowly missed him. Despite the heat, Harry shivered.

"Aah!" yelped Harry as belated pain shot through his hand, his eyes getting moist. He was so high on adrenaline that he was just now noticing that he hadn't come out of this unscathed. Charred clothes and burned skin smell got into his nostrils and Harry grimaced. Harry quickly ascertained the damage. His left sleeve got singed badly, parts of it practically falling apart in burned tatters, and his skin on hand up to his elbow painfully raw and pulsing red. Some parts of the robe felt even embedded into his skin. Harry could barely hold on to the broom with his hand like that. The bristles on his broom were smoking as well, making him feel despair. Blood was trickling from his cheek, one of the ridges of the dragon's tails must have come close to tearing his head off. This was a disaster.

Higher and higher, Harry flew out of the reach of the dragon, until the bristles stopped smoking and the stadium looked tiny down below. Harry barely had time to wonder how his broom was able to fly so well still until he tried to turn around and nearly fell off as the broom buckled under him and refused his command. Harry was having a flashback to the first Quidditch game and Quirrell cursing his broom, yet he couldn't give up. He knew how much was at stake now and a badly behaving broom was not going to stop him.

He spun around for moments until he found control again to begin a gentler descent when the sudden realization hit Harry. He was not going to make it past the dragon as he was. He could sooner kill himself if the broom failed him at the critical moment. He seriously regretted focusing solely on the offensive, not having enough time to learn any protective spells.

Harry looked at the dragon that ruined his perfect broom hatefully as she returned to her clutch, roaring in victory and not following Harry into the air. He was glad that she left him alone for now, but his condition was looking awful. It was difficult to hold on to the broom. He was feeling his fingers desperately clasping around the shaft of the broom as if his skin was boiling. Still, with the wand in his right hand, he had a slight chance of overcoming the odds. And now, it was personal. She was going to pay for what she did to his broom.

Horntail noticed that Harry wasn't quite gone yet, but didn't make any move, other than following his flight with her head as he slowly circled around her. It was by now fairly obvious. Dragons had much more intelligence than wizards gave them credit for. Harry was not going to make it to the eggs as he was. His body was in terrible condition to do any death-defying stunts like trying Wronski Feint against this dragon opponent. Harry would sooner crash into the ground than succeed in grabbing the egg. He morosely thought about why he hadn't used the broom as a first option when he was behind the cover. He was stupid to think he could do anything to the dragon with his spells or talk to it.

What option he had left? Risk passing out and crashing while barely holding onto the broom? Try to diverge her attention? With what? He couldn't transfigure the rock into anything useful that could lure the dragon away. His only somewhat solid creation was Patronus, and while it may distract dragon enough, he would never be able to slip and take the egg from under her now. Not with a damaged broom. He would have to try that if everything failed, but there was still one option left.

"Accio Luna's portkey," whispered Harry in a determined voice, hovering in the air. He was trying to not aggravate the dragon further by shouting, hoping the spell would work out fine this way, too. He held his left hand out, barely keeping himself connected to the broom as the other hand was occupied with holding a wand and balancing his body on the broom. Things were looking bleak.

Harry spotted a small object quickly closing in on his position. From the distance, it looked almost like an oddly colored snitch, but Harry knew better. It was that disgusting blob of hard jelly. Or raw meat. Who knew?

*flop*

"Tsk," breathed out Harry as it slapped his hand painfully. It was his burned and injured hand. He couldn't afford to try to catch it with the healthy one, as he was holding his wand in it and keeping his balance as well.

"Fuck," cursed Harry right after as the dragon, now of all times, left the nest and was moving her large wings, trying to follow Harry into the air. Her colossal wingspan made it look even scarier. He had one chance only for this and he hoped that Luna spoke truthfully. He wished really hard that the dragon actually ate this-

"Here, here, catch it good little dragon," taunted Harry with a shaky voice as the dragon flew closer and Harry began his controlled descent down. He lied to himself, it was not controlled at all, the broom jerking in random directions in irregular intervals, making even holding onto it bloody painful. Horntail got right behind him and got closer. It was now or never.

"Beam her up, Scotty!" shouted Harry, the ridiculous line of activation as he flung a red-coated item straight at the Horntail. Was the red disgusting chewing toy named Scotty? Honestly, he doubted that. The dragon angrily opened her mouth, but there was no stream of fire coming from her direction. Harry struggled to halt his flight and nearly crashed to the ground, barely keeping himself afloat, leveling the flight above ground.

At the moment of chill, Harry looked back, seeing the dragon biting into the thing. One. She was looking oddly satisfied and stopped pursuing Harry. She flew back toward her nest instead. Harry thought about rushing in to be there first but decided to trust Luna instead and wait. The dragon reached her nest and thumped to the ground. Two. She turned around and coiled her tail around the eggs. Three. Just a little more and it should activate.

Horntail happily chewed the thing Harry threw at her while protecting her eggs, leaving only a slight sneak peek of golden color shining between her legs. Four. Harry simply had to wait- Wait. Wouldn't all eggs teleport with her? That would be bad. Well, not as bad for her real eggs, but for his golden one for sure. How would he get it then? That worried him. Should he do something? This waiting game didn't sit well with him. His entire being urged him to take action. Five. There was a high risk that she was going to spit the portkey before it was ready, but Harry forgot to ask if the portkey teleported everything attached to it, even if it was inanimate. His only experience with one was touching it directly, after all. He had to do something. Harry leveled his wand and pointed it toward the dragon.

"Tumesco oculis!" shouted Harry for the third time today, trying to hit the eyes. Unfortunately, he was off yet again, hitting the scales on the dragon's jaw instead. Six. The dragon stood up from her spot and glared at Harry, still loosely keeping the thing in her mouth. It was the perfect opportunity to shield the egg, as all her eggs were now visible. The spell itself was useless to cast as a protection for himself, but other targets?

"Ebublio!" called out Harry and sent out the jinx. His target went true and everything around the golden egg blackened. Dragon tried to push through the bubble barrier with her mighty front legs but was repelled by the equal force back. She snapped her neck back toward Harry angrily and seemingly prepared for something, most likely pursuit. Seven.

*fwuip*

Harry saw as the massive dragon quickly compressed into a pinpoint that suddenly vanished, leaving the clutch unprotected. The danger was gone. All of her eggs appeared to be left behind and Harry let go of his spell to reveal the golden egg perfectly sitting there. Maybe he shouldn't enrage the dragon with it as it seemed his worries were unfounded, but what was done, he couldn't take back.

Despite the buzz of people talking loudly, general shouting, and Bagman trying to calm everyone out by shouting even louder than everyone else, Harry was too tired to care, eyes on the prize. He picked up a bit of speed and flew over to the egg. Harry carefully lifted a deceptively heavy item from the ground and glided leisurely toward the second tent, where every Champion was supposed to finish the task at.

The tent flap smacked him in the face as he flew inside. His broom couldn't deal with the sudden imbalance and entanglement with the fabric, so Harry was thrown to the ground. His egg slipped through the open palm of his hand, rolling around until it stopped by the foot of a mildly agitated witch. Harry moved from a sprawled position to sitting on his butt and looked up. Madam Pomfrey looked quite faint.

"Mr. Potter. Don't scare me like that. Injured yet again. What am I going to do with you? This time by a dragon?! What were the organizers thinking? Humph," spieled Pomfrey as she pointed Harry to move toward one of the beds.

"Move onto the bed there and hold still so I can take care of any injuries," instructed Pomfrey sternly as she moved toward Harry, disregarding the egg and the broom on the ground. Harry silently nodded and did as he was told. His legs felt like jelly, but he managed to get onto it pretty fast, considering.

Apart from Pomfrey, only 2 other people were around. Harry saw Krum, seemingly fine, tapping his foot, frowning at his own egg as he sat on a chair. Cedric was sitting calmly on one of the beds, with both arms bandaged and a nasty cut on his forehead, covered in some green goo. Cedric sent a barely noticeable nod in Harry's direction, which he returned.

Harry couldn't see Fleur. She was possibly behind the bed with the curtain on, but he could only see a silhouette of someone in there. No one else was there. It was odd. Wasn't there some sort of finish he had to do? Not like Bagman really explained when and how exactly the task ends. It was probably done. He got the egg, even though it was lying on the floor right about now. Maybe he could finally rest for a moment. He felt strangely calm now, and his eyes were growing heavy. It was probably Pomfrey's doing.

"Harry! That was excellent. Totally unexpected, but great!" shouted excitingly Bagman, a beaming smile on his face as he went barging into the tent. And the moment of sleepiness was gone.

"And possibly illegal. Mr. Potter, did you have the ministry's approval for using portkeys?" asked Crouch, going in right behind him.

"Potter clearly cheated. He should be disqualified for this," grunted Karkaroff and sneered in Harry's direction. He was doing a fine Snape's interpretation. Where was Snape really? He was usually right there, commenting something nasty about Harry even though he usually had no reason to be there in the first place.

"Now, let's not be hasty, Igor. I'm sure Harry will explain himself," cut in Dumbledore in a soothing voice, followed by huffing Maxima towering over everyone.

"It's- " started to say Harry, gathering his thoughts, but before he had a chance, he was interrupted.

"Where is my Dragon!" screamed Charlie Weasley submerging from behind Maxima. No wonder nobody noticed him slipping in until now.

"Where is she? What have you done to her? Give her back!" shouted fuming Charlie running straight toward Harry's bed, wand raised, anger in his eyes, completely disregarding everyone in the room. Big mistake. Before he knew it, Charlie found himself gagged and bound by several ropes that begin to drag him out of the tent as if having a will of their own. It looked awesome. Harry wished he knew that spell.

"Here Albus," said Pomfrey calmly as she handed Charlie's wand over to the hand of perplexed Dumbledore. All of them stared dumbfounded as Charlie, despite his struggles, was promptly delivered outside of the tent. Nobody noticed when and how he lost his wand until it was resting in Dumbledore's hand. Pomfrey was just that quick. On one hand, Harry was glad that she took care of the situation, but on the other, this situation drove a point to never piss her off.

"You could give it to him later when he calms down," instructed Pomfrey. Dumbledore simply nodded.

"Now if all of you fine gentlemen and lady could follow him calmly out, so I can do my job, it would be great," sarcastically said the healer as everyone stared at her.

"I'm sure Mr. Potter would answer all of your questions- " said Pomfrey as she gestured toward them. She glared especially at Bagman that was just about to open his mouth, only to shut it upon seeing her expression.

"After he is properly taken care of and his injuries treated and non-life-threatening. I'm sure everything you want to know can wait a few minutes at least? Right?" urged Pomfrey with an icy glare, daring anyone to challenge her.

"Right you are. Please inform me after you treated Harry, Poppy," calmly ordered Dumbledore as he widely gestured for others to move. Bagman and Mr. Crouch seemed to grumble and complain a bit, but their arguments met only empty air. Eventually, they all cleared the space. No one wanted to argue with Pomfrey.

"You will be first to know, Albus," stated Pomfrey as she stopped looking at the now-disappearing crowd of adults.

"You too miss Lovegood," added the healer when even Dumbledore was gone, still looking in Harry's direction and focusing on the potion at her hand. What? Harry was so not following.

"Aw, shmucks," uttered someone's muted voice coming from underneath Harry's bed. Slowly one hand appeared from the abyss and soon the rest of Luna's body followed.

"Hi, Harry. Good job at the task. I know that it would help you- " babbled Luna cheerfully, but was cut short.

"Now miss Lovegood," urged Pomfrey as she pointed outside the tent with her finger.

"I'm going... See you later Harry," said Luna as she skipped toward the opposite side, right at the flap that lead back to the arena, and flung herself out. Harry only watched, baffled at the sudden exchanges.

"Don't mind me. I'm not here," sang Luna as she came right back and this time followed the place where everyone else went.

"Teenagers. Even worse than a band of full-grown wizards that should know better," grumbled Pomfrey, but despite her words, she smiled at the now properly disappearing girl.

"Now drink this," ordered Pomfrey as she offered the potion in her hands. Still having a fresh event with Charlie in mind and already experienced in not denying his healer, Harry promptly chug it down. Wait a moment, Harry recognized this awful taste. It was...

(*)

He was too out cold to hear Pomfrey's joyful singing and flicking and swishing her wand over his body and to see Krum's grimace at the sight and Cedric's concerned glances in his direction.

Author's notes:

I'm back. Time sure flies. It took a while, but I finally finished this chapter. I really want to continue this story whenever I can, but it's not always easy to find the time.

I have a new reveal this time. One of the faces just got uncovered and it's none other than Luna Lovegood. Congrats to all 5 people that guessed her and 42 was indeed a reference to The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. The tags will be updated to reflect this "new" addition.

Everyone can continue guessing the girls/women. Even people who have written their guesses previously. 3 correct guesses (from 3 different readers) to reveal what's behind the solid color. 3 girls/women per comment at most, but you can comment every time a new chapter is posted. Numbers to pick from are: 3,7,13,21,37,69. Pair them with the girl/woman you think is hidden behind the solid color from the picture to reveal her image. The number is always above them.

I have made slight changes here and there to their outline from last time, but fundamentally what's hidden remained the same, same girls, same women, same numbers. I simply changed their pictures a bit to better reflect my vision. The resolution was slightly increased, should be nicer now.