Disclaimer: I do now own Harry Potter.


Chapter 47 – The First Task


The others wished Cedric luck and then moved to their own corners of the tent as they mentally prepared for what was to come, all the while listening in to the commentary.

"Oooh, narrow miss there, very narrow"

"He's taking risks, this one!"

"Clever move - pity it didn't work!"

The pictures that formed in Harry's head with every comment from Bagman made waiting all the worse. Finally, though, they heard the crowd cheer and Bagman called for the scores, which he didn't shout out, leaving the other champions to wonder what score they had to beat. Fleur was next and she was trembling as she made her way to the stadium.

"Oh I'm not sure that was wise!" Bagman's commentary resumed. "Oh…nearly! Careful now…good lord, I thought she'd had it then!" Like with Cedric, the crowd's applause announced when Fleur had completed her task and before Bagman could even call for the next champion, Krum was making his way out into the stadium leaving Harry alone.

"Very daring!" Harry heard the Chinese Fireball emit a horrible roar, the loudest of any of the dragons yet, followed by the collective gasp of the audience. He wondered if Krum was hurt, but not a minute later Bagman announced the task was complete.

"That's some nerve he's showing - and - yes, he's got the egg!" Knowing it was his turn, Harry made his way to the entrance and waited until he heard Bagman call his name before entering the arena. He came out into a very rocky terrain, with the Horntail nowhere in sight, though Harry knew it was around somewhere. In the middle of the arena he saw a group of eggs, among which was a glittering golden one.

"Accio egg" He whispered, trying not to look like he was summoning it so as not to make a fool of himself, while still fulfilling his promise to Ginny. As expected, however, the golden egg didn't budge. The dragon hadn't made an appearance yet, either, and it was the Horntail that Harry now looked for. Taking a few steps forward Harry looked around a large boulder, but still didn't see it, much to his surprise; a dragon wasn't exactly easy to hide. Another few steps forward and a chill went down his spine, causing him to turn slowly. The Horntail was there behind him, standing on top of the rock formation that was above the entrance he had come through. There was a long chain around its neck and Harry could see it shimmer with magic, clearly having been strengthened, for no ordinary chain would stand up against a dragon's strength, or its flame. The Horntail eyed him and Harry wasn't sure what to do. Technically there was nothing standing in between him and the golden egg, but there was no doubt that if he moved towards it a single leap from the beast would see that change. The Horntail hadn't moved since Harry had appeared and he was hesitant to take his eyes of the dragon, but he had to do something and so decided to try Griphook's idea of distraction. Waving his wand he transfigured several rocks into animals, particularly ones that the Horntail might consider dinner and for a moment it seemed to work. As three cows were levitated over to the left, away from the eggs, the Horntail's gaze finally left Harry to follow them. That changed the moment Harry made to dash towards the golden egg. With a great roar the Horntail let loose a stream of flame.

"Oh!" Bagman gasped. "That was a near miss as Potter's distraction fails, though he appears to have come away relatively unharmed!" Harry was thankful for the numerous boulders, one of which he'd jumped behind in just enough time to stop himself from being fried, though he did receive a burn to his arm, which he ignored for now, the pain not overriding the danger he was still in. "What will Potter try next?" Looking around, Harry saw that the Horntail had moved to stand directly over the eggs, roaring at him once more. Harry could see the fire building in her mouth, ready to be unleashed should he make a move towards the eggs.

'Her eggs.' Harry thought, realizing suddenly that the other eggs must indeed be the Horntail's, making her a nesting mother. It made the dragon all the more dangerous if her eggs were involved. A nesting mother would protect her eggs to the death, so there was no chance of him getting anywhere near them without one of them dying. His best chance now was to separate the golden egg from the others. The Horntail might be fooled into protecting a false egg while it was mixed with her real ones, but on its own she'd quickly realize it wasn't one of hers and would move to protect the real ones, giving Harry his best shot to get the golden egg. Thinking quickly, Harry transfigured another rock, this time into a claw that he levitated towards the golden egg. He remembered back to his time with the Dursleys and watching Dudley play at an arcade game, using a clawed hand to grab some sweets. He employed the same idea here, intending to use the clawed hand to grab the golden egg without having to step closer to the dragon. The claw was much smaller than him and clearly not alive so he hoped that the Horntail wouldn't consider it a threat. It obviously did, though, for with another powerful blast of fire the clawed hand was reduced to ash.

"Potter certainly doesn't seem to want to take any risks, though his attempts to grab the golden egg from afar don't seem to be working." Ginny would be pleased about the no risk part, and though Harry could hear some boos from where he knew Malfoy and the other Slytherins to be sitting, he didn't care. Ginny was right, his score didn't matter, coming out of this unharmed did. He was thinking on his next move when he heard it. A voice that didn't belong.

"My children…" The voice said and Harry looked around for the source. "Burn…protect…children." He could only make out certain words here and there, though as he was now listening intently he heard hissing and growling sounds in between them. It took a moment for him to realize that the only one who could be talking, and using those particular words, was the Horntail. It took barely another moment to realize why he could understand a dragon.

'Is it speaking Parseltongue?!' The very thought was absurd, Parseltongue was the language of snakes, not dragons, but he could think of no other explanation. Wondering if maybe he was going mad, but with no better idea on what to do, Harry stood from behind the boulder he'd hidden behind.

"Hello!" He called, his voice coming out as a hiss. The Horntail didn't react, though as Harry barely heard himself speak over Bagman's commentary, the Slytherins' jeers and the rest of the noise the crowd was making he didn't give up, but raised his wand to his throat and cast a Sonorus. "Hello!" He called again, the hiss reverberating around the arena, silencing the crowd and drawing the Horntail's attention. "Can you understand me?" The Horntail's eyes narrowed.

"Speaks…" Harry understood only the one word that time, but it was enough to convince him that the Horntail did speak Parseltongue. Or at least some variation of it.

"Yes, I can speak it. I mean you and your children no harm." The Horntail roared.

"Children…harm…"

"No! No harm!" Harry frantically yelled, preparing to dash behind the boulder again should her flames rise within her again. "I mean your children no harm!" The Horntail calmed some.

"No harm…" It sounded like a question and Harry nodded.

"That's right. No harm." Gaining some confidence, Harry took a few steps forward, though only went so far as the next boulder, not trusting that the dragon wouldn't change her mind and decide to fry him after all. "One of your eggs isn't real. I need the fake egg, but I have no intention of touching the others." The giant amber eyes narrowed again as it let out stream of sounds, none of which Harry could translate into actual words, but which he understood to mean it was confused.

"One egg is fake." He said slowly and clearly, realizing that trying to explain himself in full sentences wasn't going to work. The dragon's eyes seemed to narrow.

"Lies!" It roared, its fire building once more.

"No, truth!" Harry yelled back, preparing to dive behind the nearby boulder if needed, but unwilling to back down until he absolutely had to. The building fire receded and the dragon eyed him suspiciously. "Check." For a moment Harry thought that that was a word not in common between Parseltongue and whatever the dragon was speaking, but finally the dragon lowered its giant head towards the group of eggs. It didn't take its eyes off Harry as it sniffed its eggs until it passed over the golden one. The dragon appeared to do a double take and it came back to the golden egg, its eyes finally leaving Harry as it focused completely on the egg. You didn't need to speak Parseltongue to understand the roar it let loose, it was one of pure rage. Once more its flame built up and Harry did dive behind the rock this time in anticipation, but the Horntail's fury wasn't directed at him. The fire it unleashed enveloped the eggs, the heat being felt by Harry across the stadium. When the heat disappeared Harry raised his head and groaned at what he saw. While the real dragon eggs were unharmed the golden egg was a melted mess, the Horntail's flame being hot enough to incinerate it. The entire stadium was silent. Of all the outcomes the organizers had thought of, the egg melting had not been one of them and now that it had happened, no one seemed to know what to do.

"Uh…well…" Bagman tried to find something to say. "That concludes the task. We will return momentarily to deliver the scores after we've had a chance to converse." The judges made their way out of the stadium to stunned silence and Harry followed, knowing they would have questions and seeing no reason to remain with the Horntail now. They made their way to a second tent set up for when the task was complete and the other champions were there, themselves looking stunned, having been allowed to watch the others compete once they'd completed the task themselves. Each of them was clutching their golden egg, and Harry tried not to feel left out, wondering how he would get the clue for the Second Task now.

"Well that was indeed something there, Harry!" Bagman said, looking excited now that his shock had worn off. "To speak to a dragon…well, it's unheard of!"

"It is cheating, is what it is!" Karkaroff snarled. "To have an advantage such as that is unfair to the other champions."

"Parseltongue is a gift one is born with, Igor." Said Dumbledore calmly, his eyes twinkling in amusement. "Harry can no more help being a Parselmouth than Miss Delacour can help being part-veela."

"And you certainly weren't complaining when Miss Delacour used her allure to try and charm the dragon." Sirius, who along with several others had followed the judges from the stands, said with a smirk. Karkaroff flushed in embarrassment, even as he glared at Sirius. "Besides, who could have imagined that the language of snakes would also be the language of dragons?"

"It wasn't though." Harry spoke up. "The dragon wasn't speaking Parseltongue, at least not fully. We barely understood each other, it was just a few words that were the same."

"Dragons are technically a type of reptile, same as snakes." Said Griphook. "It is not entirely surprising that dragons have their own language, or that there would be some similarities between their language and Parseltongue."

"As fascinating as this is, the fact remains that Mr. Potter didn't complete the task and collect his egg." Said Crouch.

"Because I couldn't!" Harry defended. "It's not my fault you didn't think to protect the eggs from dragon fire when choosing to use nesting mothers. A first year knows that mother dragons breathe flame on their eggs for many different reasons." He muttered the last bit to Sirius who snorted in amusement.

"What did you say to the dragon, Mr. Potter?" Griphook asked.

"I told it I wasn't there to harm her eggs and that there was a fake egg among the real ones. I hoped it would just let me grab the golden egg."

"'Ze dragon did act as a dragon would." Madame Maxime admitted. "Meester Potter can 'ardly be blamed for zat." Harry tuned out the judges as they began debating what the best course of action was and went to join his fellow champions.

"Well…I knew I wouldn't be up to your standards, but I don't think even Malfoy could predict I'd melt the egg." He tried to joke. "Guess I'll just wing the next task."

"We're going to share the clue with you once we figure it out, Harry." Cedric said as if it was obvious. "None of us want to win because those organizing the tournament didn't count on a dragon being a dragon." Fleur and Viktor nodded and Harry smiled his thanks. After a few minutes it was decided that the judges would award their scores based on Harry's performance up until the egg was melted, and the assumption that if they had thought to protect the egg from dragon fire, then Harry would have been able to convince the dragon to let him walk over and just take the egg. Bagman gave him a full ten, while everyone else, except Karkaroff, gave him a nine with the Durmstrang Highmaster giving him a six. That placed Harry in second behind Fleur, though he was sure he didn't deserve it. An adjustment was then made given his lack of golden egg, with the judges determining that the four champions were now to figure out the clue together, before doing their own planning and preparations. They thought it better to have them all have to work on the clue instead of Harry just waiting for the others to do so and then be told what was to come. Given this was exactly how the champions had already decided to operate – train together then make their specific plans for the tasks separately – they were all ok with this.

Once the scores were given, Harry was finally ushered to the beds set aside in case of injuries while Madam Pomfrey ran her wand over him, looking for injuries besides the obvious burn on his arm. She found nothing and gave him some burn paste for his arm, before sending him on his way. He made it out of the tent, wanting to find Ginny, Ron and Hermione, before the goblin healers waylaid him. While they had nothing against Madam Pomfrey or her skills as a healer, they would be remiss in their profession if they didn't do their own examination of a burn caused by dragon fire. At least that's what they told him. Harry knew, though, that it was an excuse to get him to comply. They had been wanting to examine him for weeks now, but he'd never been injured enough to warrant it and given how often he found himself in the hospital wing, nothing short of serious injury would see him examined by healers, even goblin ones. Deciding it was best to finally get it over with, and knowing Ginny would be further reassured he was alright if the goblins said he was, Harry dutifully followed them and submitted to their exam. There was no wand waving with goblins, but magic was certainly still involved, for which Harry was glad as magic made things far less invasive. He sat silently as they worked, sitting for much longer than he thought necessary. He was about to ask if he could go when the three goblins shared a look, and one of them ran out, leaving a sinking feeling in the pit of Harry's stomach.

"What's wrong?" Harry didn't doubt now that something was wrong, and the look that the two remaining healers shared only confirmed it, though they said nothing beyond that it was best to wait until the Head Healer returned. It took several minutes, but eventually he did, followed by Griphook, who looked both angry and sick as his gaze landed on Harry's scar.


A/N - I always liked the idea of Harry being able to speak to the dragon with Parseltongue, or some variation of it.

Review please!