Beta: Digitize27
I answer questions about this story on my forum. Link in profile.
My Tarasque is a bit of a combination of the Tarasque from French myth, combined with a bit of a similar creature called the Peluda, also of French myth.
I saw a reddit post about that sting from the first chapter and if all else goes to plan, then that should be happening during Harry's next summer.
Harry's character growth, resolving to not be alone should be wrapped up in a few more chapters and Harry's 'being arrogant arc' will come to a head soon.
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"It is a shame for a man to grow old without seeing the beauty and strength of which his body is capable." - Socrates
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The mood in the air was full of energy. Harry couldn't help but breath in the emotions, he almost opened his mouth, as if to taste them better, as he made his way down to the Beauxbatons ferry. It usually took large numbers of students back and forth from the mainland, but today it held a different destination.
This brought him back to his first quidditch match when the entire world felt electric
There were several islands within and around Beauxbatons, each smaller than the island which hosted the campus by a large margin, but big enough to turn a quidditch pitch into an arena. That's where the first task was taking place.
Looking around the small locker room in which champions had gathered, Harry couldn't help but notice that Fleur Delacour was looking a little pale. Did she know what they faced?
"Ah the audience should be settling in at any moment," Badinter began in french, "so I might as well explain your task to you all. Outside this room, in the pitch, is one of the most dangerous magical creatures in Europe." Badinter's eyes were lighting up in excitement. Say what you will, he certainly loved his job. "A tarasque. Your job, all of you, shall be to slay it. Your contributions shall be rated by a panel of judges; however, the champion who succeeds in slaying the beast shall receive an extra twenty points."
Harry smirked. Daphne would be pleased.
"Now you shall all go to your entrances, and at the sound of the canon you may begin the task."
Harry was led by one of Badinter's assistants to a doorway looking out onto the pitch. Here he waited, breathing in the excited atmosphere around him.
Let it in. Something inside himself demanded.
No. Harry argued back, thinking about the Dementors. Letting in magic like that was dangerous… although it was pleasant…
And invigorating.
Harry already knew he would give in, so he let go and drank in the crowd's emotions. He let out a satisfied sigh as he did. He felt good. He felt strong.
His charms were practiced, his spell chains put together, he was ready to remain light on his feet. He could do this. He could really win. This tournament really could give him that necessary push to grow more powerful.
He reached through the crowd, navigating through hundreds of unfamiliar minds, straight to one that called him like a beacon. He grabbed Daphne.
'I've got this.' He whispered, transmitting comforting feelings. He could feel her anxiety and stress falling as he held her.
The cannon's crack rung right into Harry's ears,wavering in the air. Through his connection to the element, he could feel it extending out over the open water.
"And they're off!" Harry heard Badinter boom from somewhere in the stands, voice amplified.
Harry sprung forward, casting spells over his body for protection. He shedding magic like water off an ice cube on a warm summer's day. Fire protection, bark skin, acid protection, he made himself faster with longstrider, six meteors took shape around him, crafted from the blindness and deafness spell he had designed.
He didn't bother with Grindelwald's spells, at least for now. He could cast neither at a level that would be immediately and obviously helpful for this situation. Doing so would just be a waste of energy.
"Mr. Potter and Mr. Krum are casting protections while Ms. Delacour is in the middle of a transfiguration."
He glanced at his competition. True to Badinter's words, Delacour was somewhere between a bird and a woman, likely to maximize her protection from fire by making use of her Veela nature. Victor, meanwhile, had begun the first offensive with a blacked purple spell which struck the creature in the middle of the pitch.
At the sound of the cannon the monster roared through a maw of saber like teeth. Its face was somewhere between a turtle's and a lion's. Its face ran back in white fur until it reached a golden mane, which seemed hair-like near the face, but became more solid the further towards the shell the body ran. From above its head, several trinary-helix shaped horns protruded, jagged and sharp. Each of its six legs were anchored beneath its turtle like body. Its feet were bigger than he was, with three toes with jagged, two-foot long claws to match. Purple spines grew from thickly muscled knees and upper legs.
Its back was jagged around the edges with protrusions longer than meter sticking out perpendicular to its body. However, near the top of the creature's back, the shell was smoother and honeycomb-shaped, with barbs sticking out of the center of each shape, each longer than Harry's forearm.
The XXXX monster ended in a thick and scaled tail. Near the tip it was armored with a ridge like pattern which Harry was sure could fold a car like a tin can. The entire creature must have been thirty feet from nose to tail with most of its bulk in its massive shell.
Victor's eldritch blast shook the beast from where it struck. Harry could respect the power behind that, but even more so what happened next. Krum let loose five sickly-yellow looking hollow spells that shot like bullets. Where they struck the creature, they sent shards of shell and scales falling to the ground but they didn't seem to penetrate particularly far.
"Have you ever seen casting like his at this age? Is Mr. Krum competing in dueling tournaments? He should!" Badinter's commentary continued obnoxiously. Harry attempted to tune it out.
It was followed by an orange curse that wobbled inaccurately in the air. The spell hit a front leg, which was rapidly covered with soot and glowed from within, like a hot coal, as flesh was burnt away. Harry didn't recognize either of the next two blue colored spells either, but he could guess that they were somewhat cruel and debilitating in purpose based on the careful aim the Durmstrang student took at the tarasque's face.
Harry found himself feeling impressed by the machine gun rate in which the spells were cast; it was faster than Harry had ever seen in a student, except himself, and with spells he didn't recognize.
There were a lot of spells, enough that Harry knew he would never learn them all, but he knew more than the average student. Enough to see the difference between the crimson of a stunner and the subtle shade difference between it and the cruciatus. The fact that Victor possessed knowledge of such spells was a credit to him and a reminder for Harry.
Moving much faster than Harry had ever thought such a turtle-like drake could manage, it turned to face Krum and exhaled. A wave rolled over the grass in a ripple, likeair over hot asphalt. The magic turned the grass to dirt, both burning and rotting away as it extended towards Victor.
With a twist of his wand that Harry could immediately identify as a classic shield charm, Victor shielded himself from the magic which swept over him.
The beast didn't let up, and massive claws swiftly bore down on Krum. He only just managed to transfigure a barrier between himself and it before buoying himself up in the air with what may have been a charm to allow true flight, but likely wasn't. It was much more likely the basic levitato or perhaps the more complex ascendio.
Its claws folded his barrier as easily as they moved through the air moments after he had escaped.
Harry launched three of his orbiting meteors at it's less armored rear, but sensing the danger it whirled back around, teeth bared. The meteors exploded near its face in a brilliant display of light and sound. Blinded, it bellowed in fury and the area around the creature began to glow incandescent.
The air around the monster caught fire with a pop, and Harry could feel the resulting rush of heat even from most of a Quidditch pitch away.
Fleur began to sing, some enchantment or another that maximized her veela heritage, but whatever she was doing wasn't tarasque's mouth frothed with flame as it shook its head. The drake's eyes opened again and wheeled around focusing on Harry. Its rotation scoured a deep trench in the soft earth.
Harry felt the pressure on him increase along with an accompanying rise in heat. The space began to glow in a thermoluminescent fashion, because it was. The creature was setting the space he was standing on fire. Harry sprang into motion, hoping to escape the pressure but the tarasque never let up. Ash glowed behind him as he constantly evaded but never escaped.
Harry flicked his focus and cast energy efficacy, pulling from the heat behind him as he gathered strength, there was a lot of it. Not just from the tarasque's magic, though a great deal came from that source, too much for him to draw in, really, but also from everything. There was energy in the world which could stagger belief. There was energy in the sunlight, in the wind, and in the distant waves.
There was power in the emotions of the crowd that he could tap into with a thought.
Reaching out and touching the feelings around him made him feel good, made him feel strong. Was that figurative? Purely mental? Harry found that magic hardly cared about the difference between what was metaphorical and what was literal. Or perhaps he himself hardly cared and so the magic around him didn't care? To be honest, it rather reminded him about the abstract tendencies of soul magic, or rather, what he knew of it.
There was also power in himself and he knew where to find it.
Harry separated it as he dodged, spinning and sliding around while focusing more power than he ever had in his life.
Blue and white light gathered at the tip of his wand. A feeler burst from the tip and scored a jagged line through the ground in front of him even as he struggled to keep it under his control. The grass turned to ash immediately and the earth was turned to glass under the tendril before he could reign it back in.
Harry gathered for a moment and fired.
The lightning bolt that emerged from himself seemed to dim the world even as it lit up everything in a flash of white and blue. It emerged from his wand like a dam was bursting, flexing outwards. Leaders torched the ground between Harry and the creature. The ground in front of him and at the leaders was thrown upwards even as it was melted by the passing energy.
The bolt didn't strike it in the face like Harry had intended, instead it collided with its jagged shoulder. It screamed in agony as the lightning ran down and into the ground. The earth was furrowed as the spell pushed the creature back and the shell began to glow like it was melting, rather than burning. Though there were signs of both.
Jagged patterns emerged in its face as feelers attempted the path of least resistance and burned their way across it. Parts of its mane went up and liquid glowing droplets that were formerly chitinous shell fell from where the bolt struck. The tarasque's legs twitched and the left lead leg above which Harry struck collapsed and spasmed. Its tail thrashed through the air, Krum had to abandon his levitating patch of earth to escape the danger. He had good timing too, because the tail struck through the earth a moment later, blowing it apart without slowing down.
But in a moment the spell finished.
Harry gasped for breath, reaching out to the air for energy and gaining some back. He felt for the crowd but it was different. It tasted it more… fearful. More shocked.
Come to think of it, it was strangely quiet. Fleur had stopped singing. But the moment seemed to sing in Harry's mind.
Did they all think it was over?
Because the drake was getting back up.
Harry surveyed his handiwork and felt a rush of pride. This was what he could do now; it was certainly impressive. As he looked on at the droplets melting from the tarasque's shell.
More than that, he felt something hungry, too.
He could do so much more. He knew that he could. His anxieties over his future were still there but there was a certain confidence that came with seeing and knowing what he could do. The terror that stemmed from his inability to find meaning was stymied. Here he had a true target. Something he could rage at and destroy with power he had earned.
From here he could even see how he should work to improve.
Where he had lost control and, therefore, power was one, but it could also be more focused. Filling a stadium with fire too, was impressive, but that same fire focused to the size of a person, or even further, to the size of a galleon, was even more so.
That was real power combined with mastery.
All said, the tarasque was still horrendously lethal and an unneeded reminder cropped up when the air around him heated up violently. The creature pointed him out as a threat and lashed out as only a wounded, cornered, scared, magical creature could, the flames which wreathed it flared as its magic focused solely on him.
From Harry's sense of the air around him, moving fluidly, he could see how much like a liquid the air was. The arbitrary boundaries humans labeled the states of matter, like solid and liquid, were an illusion. In the right time frame or at sufficient random kinetic energy, even solid rock would appear fluid.
There was a lot of random kinetic energy in the area that was being prevented from transferring to the surrounding cooler ones. The pressure was being increased proportionally by the beast's magic until it simply couldn't maintain its current course. Quite literally like a dam bursting except with air instead of water.
His fire protective charm didn't so much fail as much as its capacity was exceeded. It continued to work since his robes didn't actually catch fire in a literal sense, but they did start to melt, the heat was simply too much for the charm to keep out and he knew that in another moment it would burn right through him too.
He had promised Dumbledore he wouldn't use any of Grindelwald's spells if he could help it, but...
"Mercrutio!" Harry mustered his will and the power to make that will manifest. He divorced himself from the space around him. Grindelwald's space rending spell separated him from the heat at the same time the tarasque's control failed and the area finally burst.
It was a desperate move. It left him completely blind and deaf to the world as darkness encroached. He hadn't had the time to take some air with him so he couldn't breathe either. For a moment he was suspended, not in a vacuum, for even a vacuum required there be space for matter to be absent from, but something even less than that. He was totally immobile as well, it was incredibly difficult to move into an absence of space, impossible really.
It was also horrendously costly, it burned through the majority of the magic he had gathered, and then seemed to burn right through him too. His head spun as he conducted the magic through himself; from the feeling in his chest and face, Harry wouldn't have been surprised if he had started to glow, like he was going to melt.
For a terrible moment he was horrifically frightened and his head spun. There was none of the energy he spent all day every day tapped into. None of the psychic or material, he was terrifically alone.
In a second horrendous rush he was back with sound and light and energy again. When he came back he was falling into the center of a crater. A flex of will and the air pushed him back to the far edge away from the beast. A good thing too since liquid rock lined the crater and slowly pooled in the bottom of the pit where it glowed red and orange. The grass was burning meters away from him too and in a wide stretch around the blast.
Harry wasn't sure what made him laugh, it could have been the sensation seeing the fruit of tireless labor or the spinning in his head, but as he did he reached out. His wand already dancing in time with his will. He couldn't help but grin.
Was this what Olympians felt?
The culmination of natural talent honed over hundreds of hours.
He inhaled smoke and let go.
He exhaled condensation and held on.
Fires died around him, the air receded back to a normal temperature, the liquid rock hardened and stilled; Harry never stopped pulling, feeding himself with the power of the world.
He had long compared himself to a dementor, dwelling almost miserably on the thought and so much self-loathing and disgust when he used powers he had earned, but that wasn't right.
If a dementor were similar to him, then veela were like dragons. They were on different orders of magnitude, used their power for different reasons, the powers they obtained in different ways. Was it something to be concerned about? Maybe so. But was it something to obsess over? Not particularly.
Harry didn't feel alone like he had then, because he wasn't, not anymore. When Hermione left he had been worried somewhere, somehow, that so would everyone else. That things would go back to the way things were before he was happy. That he would stop being talented and go back to being a freak.
Daphne had seen him, though, and she didn't want to leave. In fact, she wanted the opposite.
So as hoarfrost crept along the ground; freezing what was burning less than half a minute ago, and his heart was racing, Harry felt new.
Krum was firing spells as fast as he could, trying to slow down the drake as it changed priorities back towards him. He rolled to the side to dodge the crushing tail. Krum returned to his feet and bolted when a massive claw came his way.
Harry didn't see what trick Krum pulled but as he retreated the tarasque slumped sideways from the force of a blow, its side covered in nearly a dozen long gashes, some of which were actually deep enough to make it bleed.
With Krum making space for himself, Harry saw an opportunity.
The last thing I want to do is kill him on accident.
Harry waved his wand and the pressure increased on the creature's back, pushing it down at the same time the earth rose around it, moving fluidly to reach up and around and pull downwards.
A roar shook the arena and its claws tore the animated ground to shreds. Harry brought his wand around in a wide arc, it left dots of light in its wake as it traced a path over his head. A moment after they were summoned the dots began to move into an orbit around him. He pulled eighteen meteors in total.
With a thought he launched four of them immediately, letting the rest settle in their orbit. They struck between its feet, detonating with alarming force against the ground. He immediately went back to animating the earth.
The tarasque screeched and fought back. Harry felt the pressure on him increase and he launched two more meteors so that they hit either side of its head in quick succession, sending pieces of horn and scale falling down.
As it struggled and thrashed, it also dug itself into the ground. He continued to help with his animations and sending the occasion meteor at its feet. It went to set him alight again and Harry seized control of the air in front of its face and in its mouth and hit it with as much energy as he could spare. It was always difficult shaping air, especially as he flirted with Manton's limit, but he was able to drive it like a knife up into its mouth, throat, and nose. As a result, the tarasque lost its concentration on its magic and the pressure eased.
But he still had a lot of power left from what he regained with his energy conversion. Enough to do a massive conjuration if he had to, but he didn't right now, and that made for a pretty good Plan B.
His Plan A, however, was simple and leant well towards his dueling strengths. Few wizards could cast spells simultaneously and while Harry wasn't quite there yet (with the exception of minute meteor which Dumbledore had designed, likely with things like this in mind), he could get pretty close. As a result, his dueling strategy involved pinning the enemy down and bombarding them with his powerful spells.
The principle here was much the same, he would bury the monster, slowly, and keep it from setting him on fire with his multitasking and meteors. he was capitalizing on some of his strengths and the way its weight worked against it on the soft Quidditch field. He launched two more orbiting missiles towards its feet and another one at its face.
He and Daphne had came up with a few strategies the night before, and this was one of them.
Delacour began to sing again, her magic was enough to make even Harry twitch. He had to confess that the Veela had a good plan. Her racial features, and how she was casting the spell, as a song, likely contributed to the overall strength of the enchantment she was casting.
Veela mind magic really wasn't anything like his. Its power was seduction and enthrallment, more subtle but also more universal. His mind simply couldn't grasp the tarasque's thoughts, his legilimency was useless as a result. The Beauxbatons champion's spell went beyond things like language and rationality, and could have an actual effect on its mind as a result.
Which was both fascinating and working. The drake's movements became less panicky, almost sleepy. It stopped trying to create an explosion on top of him and sunk deeper and deeper into the ground which rose like waves around it.
It was probably a good decision, afterall, if Harry did all the work as a meek fourteen year old, then it would probably reflect poorly on the others in the judges eyes.
It casually yawned and a wave of destruction flowed outwards towards the stands, only stopped by a blue barrier which shimmered into existence as it shielded the audience from the deadly attack.
The aura of heat and fire around the tarasque began to die down and it stopped melting as much of his earthly tendrils, but it continued to sink into the glowing earth around it.
Krum, seeing he was being left out, took careful aim with his wand and, before either Harry or Delacour could stop him, he fired.
In hindsight it was probably a well thought out move, Krum couldn't afford to not doing anything after his first assault failed. If he wanted to win, he had to do something. Still, Harry decided right then and there to take the time to find the time to curse the Durmstrang Champion.
The first thing I'm going to do is kill him. Harry swore.
The blue curse impacted an eye and left a bloody ragged mess behind as a bunch of fluids that weren't blood, and a bunch more that were, dropped to the ground where they hissed and boiled.
It let loose an agonized screech and a wave of magic fire so intense Harry's grasp on the earth slipped.
The drake climbed out of the pit in several long strides, bursting the cauldron of its former personal volcano. It began to lash out with a wild breath attack in his and Delacour's direction and upward as it flailed.
Krum began an honest-to-god assault of spells against the creature's hide, which lit up in a swell of spells ranging from pink to orange to green. As they collided with the beast, a crackling pink epicenter of light expanded and stole craters of flesh while black smoke billowed forth with hidden green flashes which left behind melting chunks of former tissue in pockets. A ring of orange flared out from above the creature and expanded outwards an alarming distance; before it abruptly stopped expanding and reversed direction. Like a rubber band stretched to its limit it recoiled, slamming back into the monster, the wave of force pushing it to its knees.
Out of room to back up, Harry was pushed closer to it as he ran around the edge of the arena to dodge that lethally hazy breath. It continued to breath randomly in all directions and Harry was forced to shield from several of them as it writhed. It exhaled until the formerly massive waves were only slight pants.
Krum's attempts to chip the beast's armor apart failed when he was nearly blown apart by the tarasque's magical pressure.
Harry had already begun to move onto Plan B. Gallon after gallon of water rushed from his wand tip, both conjured and summoned, until the area around him was drenched. Fire met water and hissed as it did, but it still built up. By the time the tarasque stopped to catch its breath, Harry sent the flood in a rush at the water was evaporating as fast as he could summon it, but the creature was getting tired and the bursts of heat and flame were being pushed back.
Most of the pitch was on fire at this point and there was some liquid rock just now cooling in the massive crater, but Harry didn't need to extinguish the entire field, nor did he want to thanks to energy efficacy, he only needed to reach the beast.
Harry twirled his wand and enough water to fill an olympic pool slammed into the creature, lifting it off its feet and at the same time, with a thought, he hit its chest with six meteors, pushing it as it was carried right back into its crater in a spray of dirt. Harry stepped closer and willed the temperature to drop and the water began to ice over.
He slowly advanced, waving his wand as he weaved his work. Harry drained as much heat as he could from the water with as many of his powers as he could. Harry could get things pretty damned cold.
The water froze, crushing the drake as it expanded. By this time Harry had already stepped up right next to the crater Staring down at the trapped creature with thin, narrowed eyes. He gave his wand a casual wave and flex of will before promptly smashing the whole thing using the very energy he stole in order to freeze it.
The overpowered bludgeoning curse delivered the kinetic energy like a sucker punch from God, his last five meteors striking at the same moment. The roughly ball shaped chunk of ice shattered into jagged shards and almost snow-like flakes.
You don't always need to identify weaknesses to win. Sure, it was helpful to know that the creature's armor weakened where it met the tail or play off its legendary vulnerability to the sound of a woman's voice. It's always a good idea to have some knowledge of relative strengths and potential vulnerabilities. Being clever is also just fun, but sometimes...
Sometimes just beating his enemies to death worked.
He had to play to his strengths to do it, but this combination of recycling energy back and forth was inspired.
Perhaps he really should advance his conjuration studies like Grindelwald had suggested and maybe Dumbledore was on to something when he talked about 'the way things flow from one form to another.'
Harry was neither of them and he could take what he pleased from their advice. He refused to make their mistakes.
"-will you look at that!" It was Badinter's insignificant voice booming out over the field, finally breaking through Harry's razor focus. "The youngest champion destroyed it. What was that spell? Have you ever seen a fourth year cast like this? A tremendous display from Mr. Potter! "
Harry waved his wand and ended the spells on him. The crowd was booming, the excitement was enough to shake the island and him as he tapped into the emotions.
He felt himself grin.
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Daphne felt herself finally relax. She had spent the entire task writhing in her seat in the stands. Her anxiety returning the moment the touch of Harry's mind fled her and took he the field.
She stood even as points were being awarded, ignoring the 'hey' from her peers as she left them behind, moving as fast as she could down the wooden steps and around the pitch.
She made it to the bottom when she was brought up short; a woman was waiting at the bottom of the stairs and Daphne recognized her immediately.
"Pardon me, Ms. Malachite." Daphne began in french. "Please, excuse me-"
"I speak english, dear," Malachite dismissed. "And I was hoping to catch you."
Daphne froze. She had hoped that it was a coincidence that they ran into each other, but she had known it wasn't.
"What can I do for you, madam?" Daphne switched gears, feeling her mind race. She couldn't stay calm like Harry could, but she could emulate him a little.
"You can drop that tone for one. It works for Mr. Potter, but not for you." Malachite cut through Daphne's smokescreen. "And I was hoping we could talk. Girl to girl."
"I really don't have the time," Daphne. "I'm sure that girl talk can wait until later."
The older woman sighed in exasperation. "If you are too busy to talk then listen, girl. I'm sure Mr. Potter can wait."
Daphne noticed she was toying with her hair and stopped.
"I've heard a great deal about you Ms. Greengrass, and if I didn't know better, I'd say that being Harry Potter's friend is your only accomplishment." Malachite bit into Daphne with a smirk. "Your father's death was such a tragedy. Don't you think? Especially since he just so happened to be transferring all of his wealth when he died. But do you know what I kept thinking as I read about his death, why was he transferring between his own vaults to ones not connected to a family name."
Daphne flinched. She had been hoping to get ahold of her father's case file from Susan to find out what had happened to freeze their family assets. It was why she had traded Harry's dueling training to Susan.
That Malachite knew about where her father was transferring money to and Daphne didn't meant…
"You read my father's case file," Daphne accused.
"Smart girl," Malachite nodded.
"How did you get it?" Daphne pressed.
"Darling, if you put the right money in the right place anything is possible," Malachite explained patronizingly. "Now I had to ask myself why?"
"Why what?" Daphne wondered.
"Anyone could have been Harry Potter's best friend, so why you? Why was your father transferring money to vaults that only need a key to open?" She began to list. "Who has the keys to open them? Why haven't your family assets been unfrozen in the last ten years?"
If her father was transferring money like that, so that anyone with a key could get to it… was he planning to run? Or… He was being blackmailed?
Daphne wasn't sure. She didn't have all the details.
"What is it that you're using Harry for?" Malachite finished.
"I'm not using Harry! It's not like that!" Daphne protested, only to flinch at her mistake. She shouldn't have engaged the woman.
"Oh darling? Really?" Malachite condescended. "You just happened to sink your claws into the next great wizard by accident? A young prodigy of both mind magic and evocation who not thirty minutes ago killed a drake. Not to mention famous and destined to hold a seat of political power in England."
"Don't play the fool. Do you think he cares for you? Do you know anything about him? What he is afraid of? What he wants? Do you know? Does he know that about you?"
Daphne clenched her fists and occluded her mind. She knew how to play this game at least. Malachite was trying to do make her mad for… some reason. Maybe if she was Harry and could read minds she would know, but she wasn't.
"I've seen it before, girl and you've got it bad. Do you think being his friend makes you powerful? Makes you special? Do you think he won't throw you aside for his own dreams?"
"What do you want?" Daphne snapped.
"Now you want to cut to the chase? Very well. What I want, girl, is to have a chat. But since you don't want to talk girl to girl then listen, woman to girl."
Daphne opened her mouth to speak-
"Hush. My advice girl, is that you don't need him. I've met all three great wizards of the century and do you know what I have learned?" Malachite actually sounded genuine. "Every one of them pursued their visions to the exclusion of all else. He will never care for you more than he cares for his dreams. Not a single one of his contemporaries did. Dumbledore didn't, Grindelwald didn't, and the Dark Lord most certainly did not."
Harry isn't like any of them. Daphne affirmed. Malachite is wrong.
"You don't believe me." Malachite nodded and Daphne pulled her mind shut, just in case, but the woman didn't look angry or smug. She just looked sad and she looked at Daphne with eyes full of pity.
"You don't understand anything. You're just trying to get your revenge. Together, we beat the first task and your attempt to kill him failed," Daphne lashed out.
"You think you helped him?" Malachite asked bemusedly, denying nothing.
"Of course I did. I discovered what the beast was." Daphne felt some pride slip into her words. "I told him.
"Honey do you think he needed your help? Do you think you need his?" Malachite's expression didn't even flicker. "Go. Run to him," she dismissed. "Maybe he'll catch you in his arms."
Daphne stepped forward shakily and walked past the woman.
"But remember, the tournament isn't over yet," Malachite whispered.
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"A plague of nightmares I invoke, to raise up from the ash and smoke. Spider's web and eye of newt, viper's venom and mandrake root. Harken yay to my commands, come forth to haunt these withered lands." - Nox Arcana Conjuration
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-WG