"A dragon, " Harry said, "I'm supposed to fight a fucking dragon. How the hell am I going to fight a dragon. It takes like a dozen wizards just to subdue one, and I'm going to be facing it alone. I'm strong sure, but that's suicide." he vented to Luna, who listened patiently.
"You could try talking to it" Luna answered him.
"T- talk to it?" Harry asked.
"Yes, you could ask the dragon nicely to hand you the egg, I'm sure it would part with it for a reasonable price."
"Dragons are sentient?" Harry wondered, "I thought they were just beasts."
"Most people believe that, yes" Luna answered "but there are a few scholars that believe dragons are sentient."
"But how are they kept in preserves then?"
"The consensus amongst those who believe dragons to be intelligent, is that they realized that while they might be more powerful than wizards individually, there were many more wizards around, so as not to go extinct they 'agreed' to be kept in preserves."
"I see, and if they are basically forced to participate in the tournament as adverseries they might be amenable to a deal" Harry mused, "though I don't suppose they are able to speak english?"
"Not to my knowledge" Luna answered.
"So, assuming they are sentient and not capable of speaking english and since I don't speak dragon we'll have to see if they speak other languages, which might be diffucult seeing as most scholars believe dragons to be beasts. I think the best place to start would be to study the make up of their head."
"Why is that?" Luna asked.
"Because the morphology of the head might help us figure out what languages dragons are able to speak, " Harry answered, "let's just hope it's one I understand too.
Harry entered the champions tent. Out of all the other champions only Cedric Diggory seemed nervous, seeing as he was the only one Harry told about the dragons that said a lot. As Harry suspected Fleur Delacour and Victor Krum already knew about the dragons. He nodded to them as a greeting and seated himself on the last available bench and waited. After a few minutes Bagman appeared and greeted them.
"Hello Champions, today you will face your first challenge" he exclaimed excitedly, "As your first challenge you will have to face -" he paused for dramatic effect, "a dragon!" Not noticing the lack of surprise on the champions he continued. "Each of you will draw a model of the dragon that they will have to face out of this bag. Your objective is to steal a golden egg from its clutch. Ladies first," he motioned his bag towards Fleur.
Fleur moved her Hand towards the bag that Bagman was holding out.
Heh, bagman Harry snorted.
Fleur reached into the bag and pulled out a model of a Common Welsh Green . Next was Diggory he put his hand into the bag and pulled out a Norwegian Ridgeback, it spewed fire and lightly burned his hand. Bagman moved toward Krum and offered him the bag. Krum put his hand in and pulled out a Romanian Longhorn. Now it was Harry's turn. He put his hand into the bag and pulled out the last dragon. It was the Hungarian Horntail. Of course, just his luck that he would draw the most dangerous of all the dragons. Hopefully Luna was right and dragons were sentient and his Plan A would hold.
He was the last one of the champions to have his turn in the arena. Fleur Delacour went first. Harry
watched her leave the tent, unable to take his eyes away from her backside. He could hear the crowd cheering, and then listened for a tense twenty minutes as the crowd ahed and uhed at whatever it was the French champion was doing, then they suddenly cheered and there was a few moments of silence before Bagman came fetching for Krum. The Bulgarian left with a stoic face and Harry was left alone with Diggory in the tent. The other Hogwarts champion seemed more nervous now than in the beginning. "You okay Cedric?" Harry asked.
"How can you be so calm," he asked Harry, " I'm almost pissing myself here and you act as if you weren't going to be facing a dragon in less than an hour."
"What's the point in fretting," Harry asked back, "don't get me wrong, I'm dead afraid of facing the dragon, but there's no point in running myself spare by worrying. "
The other boy tried to take Harry's advice and sat down on a chair and tried to calm himself down. It seemed to work as he sat there in silence until Bagman came to get him.
"Good luck." Harry said to Cedric.
"Thanks, you too." Cedric replied and followed Bagman out of the tent.
He could again hear the crowd cheer and then tuned them out and went over his plans again. The time seemed to move faster this time and it felt like only a moment when it was finally his time. He followed Bagman out of the tent into the arena. Bagman joined the other judges in their stand. Harry walked towards the dragon, trying not to lose his cool now in the final moments. He was hoping that the dragon wouldn't just fry him on the spot before he could try to talk to it. When he finally deemed himself close enough he stopped and cast a Sonorus on himself.
"Do you understand me?" he asked the dragon in Meerish. The crowd was silently watching Harry most not understanding what was happening. A few people knowing Meerish understood what he was trying to do, among them Dumbledore who watched intrigued.
But the dragon remained silent, it looked like it was slightly tilting his head, as if asking "what are you trying to say?".
"Do you understand me?" he now asked the dragon in Parsel Tongue, desperatly hoping the dragon would understand.
"I do." the dragon answered him after what seemed forever.
Harry let out a relieved sigh. Now the that the hard part was done all he had to do was convinve the dragon to part with the golden egg, couldn't be that difficult could it?
"I assume you know why you are here at the moment?," Harry asked the dragon.
"Because of the Triwizard Tournament," the dragon acknowledged, "as far as I can surmise you have to get the golden egg, the put with my clutch. Not that they bothered to ask me whether I even wanted to do this, risking the well-being of my progeny for the pleasure of you humans."
"Yeah, well, I didn't exactly volenteer myself either," Harry stopped the dragon before he could rant further.
"You did not?," the dragon asked curiously, "why are you here then?"
"Somebody put my name into the Goblet of Fire, that's the artifact they use to decide champions," Harry said, "and apparantly that is binding, not that I'm willing to risk my magic to find out if that's true."
"Hmm, that is indeed unfortunate," the dragon replied, "It seems we both didn't want to be here, but for you to finish here you need to get the golden egg, wouldn't you agree."
"You dont' suppose you could just hand the egg over?" Harry asked.
"I could, but I seem to have the advantage here, what would there be for me if I just gave you your price" the dragon retorted.
"I can pay you, I have plenty of gold, just name your price." Harry offered the dragon, thinking of what a dragon might want.
"I have no use for your gold, human" the dragon said with what looked like an amused expression to Harry, it seems that popular media was wrong and dragons might not actually horde treasures.
"What do you have use for then?" Harry asked hoping he could actually give the dragon what she wanted.
"We are provided for most things back in the preserves," she answered him, "but what we lack is communication with the handlers, while they provide an adequate service, they are not able to understand us," she continued, "so what I would have of you is that you provide a translation service for a hundred hours, after which you will be compensated to continue the same service"
"That is acceptable." Harryreplied. So the dragon moved to pick up the golden egg with it's claw and gently clasped it in way Harry wouldn't have thought possible and offered it to him.
Harry thanked the dragon and took the egg from her and walked to the exit, glancing around him he saw his audiance in a stunned silence, they looked as if they couldn't believe their eyes, he was probably faster than everyone else, and he didn't think the others had just been handed their eggs.
He exited the arena and saw Madam Pomfrey waiting for him. "I'm sorry Madam Pomfrey, but it looks like I don't need your services for once." he told her with a grin.
Madam Pomfrey blinked a few times before she answered him, "yes well, let's hope it stays this way" and moved to pack her mediwiz tent together.
"Ladies and Gentlemen, " Bagman's voice boomed through the air, "with that " he paused for a moment, "interesting performance we now move to the judging. If all contestants would please find themselves before the judges."
With that Harry moved back into the arena. With everyone there Dumbledore took the lead, "Miss Delacour, we award you 38 points, you managed to distract the dragon, before swooping in for the egg, but you got burned on the way out." he said.
Harry couldn't tell if Fleur was Happy with that or not. "Mister Krum," Dumbledore continued, "your Conjunctivitis curse while in theory a good idea, caused your dragon to smash half his eggs before you managed to get your golden one, therefore we award you 25 points, you should thank your headmaster for awarding you the full 10 points despite your poor performance." he said looking at Karkaroff how seemed oblivious to it. "Mister Diggory, we award you 33 points, your rock to dog transformation was quite the neat spellwork, but unfortunately the dragon caught on before you managed to get away with the egg."
"Mister Potter, " he continued, for once using Harry's family name, the public being the reason for it he assumed rather than something he did wrong. "I don't know how you managed to convince the dragon to just hand, or rather claw you the egg," he chuckled at his own joke, "and I wish I could award you the full 50 points," he said as he glared at Karkaroff, who actually shrank back a bit, "but unfortunatly for what I assume can only be stupidity I can only award you 44 points."
Harry was too happy to be in the lead to glare Karkaroff for to long. He didn't even notice Luna crashing into him and hugging him tightly.
"I was so worried the dragon would eat you"the normally aloof girl said to him.
"Eat me?" Harry answered, holding her tightly, "You didn't say anything about the dragon eating me." he exclaimed.
"I didn't want to worry you too much, but there have been incidences." she said almost sobbing.
"Hey," he whispered, "I survived, didn't I?" he said, lifting her chin, looking her in the eyes, before he kissed her softly. They stayed like this for a moment, before being disturbed by their friends.
"That was amazing" Ron said. "you just convinced the dragon to hand you the egg."
"I thought you were going to die." Hermione said, hugging him tightly.
"Don't worry, It'll take at least Voldemort to kill me." he said patting her back, making her chuckle.
"Now come on," Harry said, "I was told there would be festivities in my honor back in the common room." as he walked back to the castle.