AN: Listening to metal remixes of classic Disney songs is a sure interesting listen.
Several things: I apologize for not uploading in sometime, school has started back up and it now dominates most of my time but I'll do my best to get time in for this amazing website.
Also I'm going to make things easier of the both of us for future chapters:
"Dark Tongue speech" (which includes the Beast Tongue)
"Dark Gods Speech"
"Normal speech"
"Thoughts"
Chapter 7 – The First Task (Part One)
*This is the fourth attack in the past several days that have baffled the police and the government as to why they have been happening. Here with me now is Chief Inspector Daniels with more details."
"Well what we are allowed to share with the public is that even though it seems as terrorism, this is most certainly not the case if we examine the what is left over; hoof prints the size of a normal man's boot surrounding and in the area, barbaric markings written on the walls and most distressful of all, some sort of effigy or altar as if the perpetrators were somewhat religious. All I can offer to the public is sincere asking that they stay safe and hope that this is the last of the attacks." *
Several days after the Weighing of the Wands, Harry and Luna were discussing the finer points of his plan when the morning owl post arrived which signalled many eyebrows being raised over Harry's words and actions that were reported by the reported.
"Oi Potter! I always knew you were a dark wizard, promising to hurt people."
Harry turned around slightly and noticed that a majority of the great hall were looking and listening in when he realised that someone was speaking to him.
"Oh Weasley I didn't see you there, what do you promising to hurt people?" Harry queried with a raised eyebrow and so Hermione handed him the morning paper to show him.
'TRI-WIZARD TOURNAMENT SNUB!'
By Rita Skeeter
When we think of the Tri-Wizard, we think of a grand tournament with three contestants, fighting for fame and glory for their chosen schools.
However, not today, no, for today is a sad day as the Tri-Wizard tournament has been sullied by a vicious attempt at a vainglorious attempt by a glory hound with delusions of grandeur.
As many readers know, the Tri-Wizard tournament has been reopened and is now being held at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft & Wizardry, but this year there are not three contestants, but FOUR.
Yes, you heard me right my dear readers; there are four contestants in the Tri-Wizard tournament instead of three.
The fourth contestant for the tournament is none other than Harry Potter himself!
Mr Potter has somehow been illegally entered the revered Tri-Wizard tournament, whether it be by some miracle of magic or some nefarious magic.
Being the faithful reporter I am, I attempted to gain an interview with Mr Potter at the weighing of the wands ceremony but as I attempted to initiate one, he only had this to say:
"You will remove your hand from my arm Miss Skeeter, or I promise you, I will take it off along with the other one" – Harry Potter aged 14
Is this the kind of response we want from a champion of Hogwarts?
Is this the kind of response we want our children to have when they want to meet the fabled Boy-Who-lived when they arrive at Hogwarts?
The article continued on for a few more paragraphs, giving different reasons on how Harry could've entered the tournament and why but he just ignored them as he turned his attention back to Weasley, whose face had turned a bright red from Harry ignoring him.
"Listen and listen well Weasley, yes I did threaten Skeeter of taking her arms off because she demanded I go with her to gods knows where to conduct an 'interview' and so I did what anyone else would do in that situation, but everything else is a lie," Harry said a low voice as he thought about that woman.
"See! You just gave us proof that you are willing to hurt people!" Weasley cried out, seeing several heads nod along with him.
"Oh so defending yourself is considered evil now? Thanks for clearing that up Weasley," Neville spat at him.
"You stay out of this Longbottom! You're just as dark as he is."
"No he is not Ronald and if you took the time to talk to them you'd see that they're completely the opposite," said Ginny, surprising many people as she came to Neville's defence.
"Ginny, how could you? He's just as dark as Potter is," Weasley began to sputter in embarrassment as his sister's defence of one of the people he hated.
The great hall watched the two Weasleys go back and forth before the Weasley twins came between them and broke the argument with each other them making the other go to separate places.
After the Weasley argument finished, Harry turned back to his own conversations when Hermione politely interrupted their conversation with queries of the first task.
"So do you have a plan Harry?"
Harry looked Hermione with slight amusement and placated his sister's concerns.
"I'm just going over the find details of the plan right now with Luna Hermione, don't worry, I've got this."
"I know you do but can I please know it? Please please please?" Harry only laughed Hermione's incessant wanting to know, some of her old personality returning but he refused to tell her and left her pouting.
Harry went back to conversing with Luna for several more minutes before Luna brought up the subject of the first task.
"Shouldn't you let Cedric know about what's to come about in the first task?"
Harry looked at her strangely for a second before he responded.
"And why should I do that? He has done nothing to stop his friends and housemates from wearing those pathetic badges, and besides, the more knowledge I have the better."
"Well think of it this way; just give him a note saying what it is and don't sign it, lead him into finding out and if he doesn't believe it, bad luck for him."
"She is right my champion, give him the information he seeks without any acknowledgement and let him deal with the consequences"
'Then let us hope he is wise enough to understand the threat level.' Harry thought back to his patron as he grabbed a small piece of parchment from his robes, wrote down what the first task would be with a message and sent it off on its journey with a wave of his wand.
Scene break
When Cedric walked into the great hall and sat down for breakfast, he didn't expect the hostility and sea of raised eyebrows directed towards a certain Ravenclaw but when one of his friends passed him the morning Daily Prophet, he immediately understood why as he thought back to the Wand Weighing.
What he did notice was that more people were wearing those badges that were rumoured to be designed by Draco Malfoy but he obviously denied such making, bringing with him airtight alibis so he could not get into trouble.
As he was about to speak up about the article, Ron Weasley chose this moment, once again, to show his ignorance at some other person personality.
"Seriously why haven't the teacher's done something about him?" a boy to Cedric's right said softly.
"Probably because right now it is just all talk, only when it becomes violence and wands are drawn will they come down and do something, kind of sad really," the girl across from the boy said in an equally soft voice.
When Cedric heard Harry retort, his face paled slightly from the level of darkness he said it with but his thoughts were interrupted by Neville, his own housemate speaking up to defend him and was called dark in retaliation, just for defending his friend.
Cedric and his group of friends watched as Ginny Weasley entered the verbal fray and the Weasley argument came to a head when their older brothers had to separate them and send them off to opposite parts of the table.
He looked back towards Potter and saw that he had gone back to the conversation he was having with his friends but when he looked down, he noticed a small piece of parchment sitting in front of him on the table.
"Hey Ced, what's that?" one of Cedric's friends asked as they watched Cedric notice the parchment and pick it up.
"I have no idea, but let's see what it says shall we?" Cedric slowly opened the parchment up, slightly wary if came from the Weasley twins again but saw it only had ten words on it, certainly not, what he expected from a note.
'First task is dragons, do with it what you will'
Cedric's face paled dramatically as the puzzle pieces from the clues came falling into place.
Cedric's friends saw his face pale rapidly and became quite concerned when he quickly got up, with parchment in hand, and almost ran out of the great hall.
"I wonder what got his wand all twisted in a knot."
Scene break
Many miles away, in the quiet recesses of a school library, Sarah Cavanagh sat surrounded by her friends, both male and female to discuss the latest piece of news that she had received from her friend.
"So what is he going to do?" one of Sarah's friends asked from her left.
"Even though I have known him for much less than a year, I know he'll overcome it. The will of his patron will see him through the tasks of their tournament, he has allies there that will help him both magically and sorcery wise, but what really interests me is the last part of his message." Sarah said as she took the letter from out of her bag to show her friends.
"What does it say?"
Sarah looked over it several times to make sure that it said what she thought it said and looked back to her friends.
"It says: find me a place that can be easily accessed but not to those with ill intent, a place that is spacious but not tucked away completely hidden from site."
Sarah looked around the table at her friends and nodded her head in agreement at what her friends were thinking.
"Yes he is certainly being cryptic about it, he either wants a large warehouse in the warehouse district or he wants a completely different building that ca be used by the public but not by people who with harmful intent, just great." Sarah threw her arms up in bafflement at her friend's words and the table went silent in their thoughts.
Several minutes later, as one of the members of the table decided to stand up and walk around for help with their thinking, their eye was caught by a slightly dilapidated building, easily seen from a good distance away but hidden in plain sight due to its state.
"How about that building over there? It fits the description perfectly; easily hidden but public, no one really has used that type of building with ill intent and it looks spacious enough that it's practically thought of that it's a requirement for a building like that to have that much space," her friend's words made a lot of sense as the group began to think about it in a logistical sense.
"If we're gonna do this, then we'll need help and it just so happens that Harry has a friend who has a group just like this, doing this will show our commitment and our loyalty to them," Sarah said with a firm conviction and smiled in response as her friends said the same thing right back at her.
As they began to finish their small meeting, they recited what had somewhat become their end of meeting phrase.
"Be it the will of the dark gods."
Scene break
The day for the first task came and with it, just a normal feeling day for Harry.
He knew what he was going to face, he knew his plan would work; yet, he could not help but feel as if today were a normal day at Hogwarts.
"Mr Potter…Harry, it's time," Professor Flitwick's grave sound came from behind him as he finished eating.
"Professor Flitwick please, you make it sound like I'm going to my death or something." Harry scoffed lightly as he got up to follow his second favourite teacher.
As the duo walked towards the arena at a leisurely pace, if not for one of them to keep their walk a treasured memory, numerous students, mostly Slytherins and Gryffindors, shouted out that they hoped Harry would fail and lose but he paid them no notice.
"Harry, whatever happens in the arena today, know that I am and always will be proud of having you as my student, your mother would extremely proud to see how far you've come if she were here with us, then again, she might've shouted our heads off is she saw what has happened to you," Flitwick said with a laugh.
The duo lightly laughed at the professor's joke but either way, Harry agreed with what his head of house said and warmth lit up his body at hearing his words.
"Thank you, professor, you've always been my favourite Hogwarts teacher, and nothing can change that." Flitwick smiled sadly at his young pupil's words and led him towards the champion's tent.
"In here Harry, and good luck my boy," after that Flitwick left Harry to the champions tent who did not feel at all annoyed at the usage of 'my boy'.
Harry entered the tent to see the Judges and the champions all in their separate areas when Bagman tried to pull Harry forwards into the group but stopped when he received a glare that he did not want to admit but it terrified him.
"W-w-well now that we're all here, we can begin, gather round champions, now in this bag are the obstacles that you will be facing for you to collect the golden egg, which will have your next clue for the second task in it." Bagman seemed to get even more excited as he continued to speak.
"Now, ladies first," Bagman held the bag for Fleur to take an obstacle and out from the bag, clutched her hand was a Common Welsh Green Dragon with a number two around its tiny neck.
"Mr Diggory, you next," Cedric repeated Fleur's actions and out came a Swedish Short-Snout with a number one around its neck.
"Mr Krum, if you'd please." Viktor almost shoved his hand into the bag and in his hand was a Chinese Fireball with a three around its neck.
"Which leaves only you Mr Potter." Harry lowered his hand into the bag with a small smirk directed at the other champions and from the bag he drew a Hungarian Horntail, which made the headmasters/mistress wincing in pity.
"Now as you can see from the miniatures, out in the arena, there are life-sized versions of them and they will be the obstacles that will defend the golden egg against you, once you get the egg, it contains the clue to the next task and it is your job to unravel it," and with that he bade the champions good luck and left with the other judges.
As the champions withdrew to their respective areas, Harry grabbed his chair and dropped it in front of Cedric with a smirk on his face.
"Did the note help?"
Cedric's face froze for several moments before his eyes widened significantly and sputtered out a few words.
"It was you! But how?"
"I have my ways Cedric, just as these other two have theirs," Harry turned back to Fleur and Viktor and glared at them for he knew just how they came to know what they would be facing.
With immense satisfaction, Harry saw that both champions flinched slightly at his words and glare before turning away and focussing on their own dragons.
"Look in all seriousness, I'm not going to leave a Hogwarts brother to hang out in the dry without help, just good luck with your dragon" and with that final word, Harry left Cedric to prepare and focus on what needed to be done before he went out.
Scene break
After hearing and listening to his competitor's successful attempts at engaging their dragons and successfully gaining their golden eggs, it took twenty minutes for the next dragon to be forced into the arena whereas the other had only taken around seven and a half.
"Now ladies and gentleman, now fighting against the Hungarian Horntail, last but not least, your fourth champion Mr Harry Potter!" Bagman shouted aloud with obvious glee.
As Harry listened to Bagman shout his name, with dark glee, sent a mental pulse through the warp, towards the bray-shaman of the beastmen that he had recruited, and walked out into the arena.
Scene break
Far across the Scottish countryside, in a dense forest where one could even get lost in should they lose their way, lay the first, and quite possibly the only Warherd of beastmen in the Scottish countryside.
As the beastmen waited for something to happen, the lead Bray-Shaman sat knelt in front of an altar, waiting and listening for the signal that the champion had given him.
As his mind drifted throughout the energies of the warp, a glaring signal hit his mind that sent him spiralling back into his body.
"The champion has given his command and so the warherd shall follow"
The bray-shaman spoke to theWargor of the herd and so in the dark recesses of the forest, a loud cacophony of braying like sounds rang into the afternoon air, ringing true and far, all the way to the outer edges of the forest where it frightened several herds of sheep and left an uneasy feeling in the air.
What plan has Harry and Luna come up with to combat what he has to in the first task? Will it succeed? Will there be any more backlashes from Skeeter when he unveils his plan? Will Cedric be grateful and help Harry in return for his help for the first task? Now that Harry has publically seen what he has to face, what exactly will he do to come out on top against the most dangerous dragon of the four? Find out next time on The Affliction!
Give it a good read, possibly even give a review as they are always welcome and it tells me if you're liking the story and you have yourself a very good day :)