AN: What possessed people in the past to grab a random plant, have a good ol' munch on it and decide to make classify it as a fruit but at the same time classify it as a herb? Seriously humanity!

Jean-Ray: I'm glad that you're enjoying it as much as you are and making Neville have Nurgle just seemed right in my mind

Chapter 11 – Fractures & The Second Task

"Nurgle!"

The word kept buzzing around in Harry's mind as his psyche kept running through Neville's words over and over again, until what seemed like an eternity, became suddenly still, as if he were statue.

Neville watched Harry's form suddenly become rigid and still, as if he was preparing to do something and so with a slight shift of his body, he too became prepared for whatever might come but he wasn't prepared for the sudden speed that Harry showed he was rammed against the stone alcove wall with fingers curling around his throat.

"You mean to tell me, that YOU, the friend that I call my brother in all but blood, is the vessel and champion for Nurgle? Anathema to Tzeentch. Is that what you're telling me?" Harry snarled at his friend as his fingers kept a strong grip around Neville's throat.

As Neville tried but failed to speak, several things happened at once; from above and slightly behind the two champions, a trio of groups came racing out of the shadows with different intentions.

From behind the two boys came the group consisting of Hermione, Lavender and Padma. Hermione led at the front with the intention to back up whichever of her friends needed the most but mainly she was there to keep things from becoming too hot.

Coming to Harry's side was Luna and Daphne. Their intention was simple: backup for Harry should he request it but even though they knew that Harry was the strongest of the champions in their current setting, the plague father was considered their god's anathema and so they kept their eyes firmly on the last group that entered the fray.

And lastly, to everyone's surprise came the duo of Ginny and Susan. Their addition came as a surprise to everyone as they hadn't seen or felt a single sign of warp interference coming from either one of them but seeing them at Neville's side with similar eyes that bubbled with the power of Nurgle's warp power behind them.

"So this is what is has come down to eh brother? The strongest two of the dark gods pitted against each other once again with Slaanesh as the deciding vote. How you have kept this secret for so long amazes me but then again what is a plague but a hiding and festering thing that springs up at the most opportune time to wreak as much havoc as possible." Even though he was faced with more than one Nurgle follower, he knew that if push came to shove, Luna and Daphne would defend him.

As Harry kept Neville lifted off the ground, he had managed to loosen Harry's fingers a bit to be able to speak and plead his case to the person he still considered his brother.

"I had no choice to keep a secret as big as this from you but Nurgle wanted it to be so and I listened. I am the champion of Nurgle but I am still your brother!" Neville said emphatically as his word took on the dark tone of the dark tongue, to show to Harry that even though he had slightly betrayed him, he still had his back.

As Harry listened to Neville's words, he had decided that enough time had passed for such words and decided on the actions that may or may not destroy the brotherhood they had built up from their years of friendship.

Harry's fingers slowly unfurled from Neville's neck slightly but as soon as Neville felt relief that Harry would listen to logic, he suddenly found himself thrown across the alcove, slamming his side into the rock face.

"Neville!" cried both Ginny and Susan as they ran to the friend's side as they tried to help him up but as they lifted him up to make sure he was alright, Harry called out a warning to them both.

"Girls, it would be an unwise decision to help the champion of Nurgle, he is going to pay for doing this to us."

Ginny and Susan both glared with warning filled eyes at Harry's words and prepared to cast several hexes at him in the defense of their friend.

"Can someone please explain what is going on? Harry suddenly flipping out and attacking Neville and the others having a standoff isn't exactly reassuring for those who don't know the history." Padma asked the group, looking to anyone who could answer her and it was Hermione that answered her.

"When they came into being, it was originally thought that only Tzeentch came through to Harry, but we were wrong. Slaanesh also came through and only brought attention to Tzeentch through myself in second year. We had no idea that another, let alone Nurgle, had come through as well." Hermione explained slowly so as to not escalate the problem even further.

"So what does this have to do with Harry flipping out?" Padma said while the group noticed that Neville had started to get back up to his feet.

"Well, because Tzeentch comes from hope and ambition, Nurgle is the opposite; he is defiance born of despair and hopelessness. Thus opposing forces. Just as we would have our opposites, those two would take any chance they could get at attacking the other, with very rare moments of working together for a common goal." Hermione finished explaining as Neville fully got back up to his feet.

"Ginny, Susan stand aside. He's right. This has been in the coming for some time, ever since we have been growing in power, this would've happened no matter what. Whenever you are ready brother." Neville sighed in acceptance at what had to happen because of who they followed but nodded his head resolutely as he swore that he would do as much damage to Harry as he received.

It was a blink of the eye and you'll miss it moment as the first spell impacted where Neville's head had been but he had moved it as soon as he had seen Harry begin to move and responded in kind as he returned a spell with equal semi-lethal force.

Scene break

By now, the powers of chaos group had been noticeably missing from the last half of breakfast and well into first period when several students were noticeably running through the hallways, pushing anybody that was out in the halls away from their intended path, along with two people that had seen much better days and so someone quickly ran to grab a teacher to tell what they had seen.

As soon as the group burst through the doors of the hospital wing, Madam Pomfrey took one look at the students that they had carried in with them, sputtered an incoherent sentence and pointed towards two beds to lay them on.

As the two students were gently placed on the beds, Pomphrey ran to her office to floo the Headmaster but stopped as the doors were once again pushed open to reveal the Headmaster with a frown on his face as he looked towards his intended targets.

"Ah Poppy! If you could clear this up for me; I was alerted by one of the staff that there was a group running towards here with two people that seemed very heavily damaged, is this true?" Dumbledore questioned as he looked into her eyes.

Madame Pomphrey could only nod her head slightly a she directed the Headmaster over to where it was revealed with great surprise that it was Harry Potter and Neville Longbottom had come in with such grievous injuries.

"What in the name of Merlin has happened to these poor boys?" Dumbledore demanded of the girls as he turned towards them with a glare.

Hermione chose to speak for the group as she had the authority to speak for the group due to her status as champion.

"They had a disagreement Headmaster, that is all."

Dumbledore looked at Hermione over the rim of his glasses and felt the temptation to look into her memories to see the truth for himself but resisted as he turned back to Poppy to ask about their injuries.

"Let me just cast some spells and determine what the injuries, both out and in, are."

As the school nurse cast her diagnosis spells over the two with the damage being written out on a piece of parchment, the colour of her face went whiter and whiter as she went along and by the end of it, she ran back to her office to retrieve the necessary potions to treat her patients.

Dumbledore watched as the nurse ran back to her office and then straight back to the two boys on beds and began to shove potion after potion down their throats, all the while casting spells over the two.

Dumbledore reached over to the piece of parchment that lay on the bedside table and with raised eyebrows, began to read down the list of injuries, with equal amount of face paling.

-Multiple fractures along arms

-Multiple fractures along legs

-Several broken ribs

-Internal bleeding

-Numerous cuts along arms

-Numerous cuts along legs

The list went on for several more lines before ending with magical exhaustion.

Dumbledore slowly turned towards the group with a ghost white face and wide eyes.

"They had a…. disagreement?" Dumbledore questions the girls with a whisper as he was still trying to comprehend the damage that the two boys had dealt each other.

"As I said Headmaster, they had a disagreement and it led to this," Hermione stated in a deadpan voice.

"Then why did you do nothing to stop them?!" Dumbledore raised his voice at the group students, leading to several raised eyebrows but kept silent as he stood there waiting.

"As much as we wanted to Headmaster, they chose to fight and despite some amongst us wanting to join in, they chose to fight alone without assistance. Now if you would excuse us Headmaster, we must watch over our friends, lest anything untoward happen to them." With that, Hermione and the group walked over to their friends' beds with each group separated into their respective allegiance.

"Poppy, please keep me updated on Mr Potter's health as the next stage of the Tournament is just a month away." Dumbledore asked while he looked over at the group, eyeing several of them with interest as he began to mentally design several plans up but left the group for the moment and chose to leave.

Scene break

As the sun and moon continued their eternal cycle and the weeks wore on, the patience of the judge's and the school's residents were becoming more drawn out and thin at the continued hospitalization of their fourth champion.

"Dumbledore something has to give; the second task is tomorrow with no sign of Potter of being able to compete in the task." Crouch said vehemently as he paced around in the headmaster's office as the judge's had gathered together to discuss the current status of Harry Potter.

"He should be kicked out of the tournament anyvay, he refused the Ball and spat on the tournament as a hole," Karkaroff said in his gravelly tone of voice but no one listened to him.

"And I keep telling you Barty, he will be perfectly fine to compete in the second task tomorrow. Now have we gathered the participants for the task?" Dumbledore asked the group as a collective.

"Da, Viktor's hostage has been given the potion and is waiting for us in their room on the ship in preparation to be included," Karkaroff growled in his gravelly voice from the furthest side of the room.

"And you Madam?" Dumbledore looked at Madam Maxine.

"Oui Dumblydore, Fleur's is in the Beauxbatons carriage and waiting for the task to be held."

Dumbledore nodded in acceptance and turned his head towards Moody with his ever moving fake eye.

"Has anything new turned up in your investigations Alastor?"

"Nothing new at this point Albus. Whoever entered Potter into the tournament must been extremely powerful because with all the tricks I pulled in my investigations, nothing came up at all." Moody growled, slightly hidden in the shadows of Dumbledore's office.

"Alright then. Because you haven't found anything I'll see if I can get Cornelius to lend us some aurors for more protection in the third task then. Hopefully this should deter anyone from further interference." Dumbledore said with a resolute nod of the head as the group continued on to discuss specifics for the next task.

Scene break

The day of the second task came and with it, everyone's expectations of Harry not competing was further compounded by him not being there during morning breakfast.

During breakfast, everyone kept looking at Neville and Hermione, who, with the rest of the group, was sitting at the Ravenclaw table like always but just like as the previous number of weeks, it was without Harry, Luna and Daphne, as they had decided to stick with Harry as he was still in the hospital.

"Do you think he'll be out in the next half-hour? The second task begins in an hour and still nothing from him?" Lavender asked the open question but no one seemed to have an answer to give.

"Considering how powerful he is; Harry should've been out of the hospital before me but something or someone is keeping him there, the best thing to do is to wait and watch for whatever is going on play out." Neville said with a nod and as the group went back to silence, Daphne came running in with several tears in her eyes.

"Daphne? What's wrong?" Hermione said with alarmed eyes as the surrounding students leaned closer to listen in as to what had the rebellious Slytherin so worked up.

"They've taken Luna."

Scene break

After hearing what Daphne had said, the group quickly left the great hall to some smatterings of whispers from those who had heard what she said and entered an unused classroom for privacy.

"Alright, Daphne, from the top," Neville said as everyone took their places in the room.

"Okay, as you all know Luna and I were staying with Harry in the hospital wing and waiting for him to wake up. Well probably sometime during the night, someone or some group of people came in and took Luna for Tzeentch knows what." Daphne told them what had happened and the group descended into silence.

For several minutes the group had stayed silent whilst thinking of different reasons for the kidnaping of Luna before Hermione chose to reassure Daphne of their friend's wellbeing.

"Well, we know this; Luna has always been strong and I supremely doubt that Harry would let anything bad happen to either her or you. He'll wake up and he'll get her back."

Daphne could only nod as the students of all three school began to make the trek down to the black lake for the beginning of the second task.

Scene break

"We cannot wait any longer for Potter. There is only five more minutes till we have to begin the task and if he is not here by the commencement, then he shall be disqualified from this task and given zero points." Ludo Bagman stated the group of judges as the majority of the people on the platforms were shifting about, waiting for a sign from the absent champion.

As the crowd began to talk amongst themselves about the missing champion, the timer for the cannon to fire reached the ten second mark but before anyone could make to announce the disqualification, everyone was blown onto their backs as a powerful gust of fire materialised in the centre of the platform.

As the fire disappeared, Harry Potter stood in the middle of the now smoldering circle with a look of fury on his face.

"You have stolen something very precious from me, so begin this task so that I may take back what is mine," Harry told them in a flat tone as he turned towards the lake with his fingers flexing every few seconds.

As he was greeted with that dragged on for several more seconds, Crouch finally got around to stuttering out the commencement of the task.

"Al-lr-r-ight then ch-champions, you may begin the task whenever you are ready."

At the last word, the other champions shook themselves out of their stupor and dove into the water, leaving Harry behind as he turned towards the lake with a sneer.

As Harry began to cast his sense out to find his missing friend, he began to think about what might prove effective to ensure that those who would try something like this in the future know the consequences of such actions.

For several more minutes, Harry stood stock still, as if he was waiting for something to happen and all the while he stood still, the crowd began to whisper about how he wasn't diving into the lake.

"What's wrong Potter? Scared of a little bit of water?"

Harry didn't respond to the taunt and continued to stand still for a few more seconds before raising his hand and in front of the entire audience, spoke the language of chaos.

As the audience listened closely to try to understand what Harry was saying, the entirety of the platforms, besides those who were allied with chaos, grasped their heads in pain as the words grated in the ears and caused headaches to develop in some students.

As Harry's voice began to die down into a whisper, a dark purple vortex appeared over the lake, hovering ever so slightly but gave off an ominous feeling whenever someone looked at it.

Seconds passed before everyone on the docks heard a loud screech, almost as if someone rubbed a pair of rusty metal sheets next to their ears and to their horror, a creature of dark purple with long, sharp fangs came screaming out of the vortex.

People watched as the creature flew across the docks and before anyone could see what had happened, Harry had grabbed a hold of one of the daemon's horns but before anyone could stop him, he and the creature dove into the water with nary a care.

Scene break

Deeper and deeper Harry and his mount dived into the black depths of the black lake, Harry didn't know exactly where his friend was being held but the using the daemon's senses, he knew that he was headed in the right direction.

As he passed several drop offs, Harry noticed in front of him, a large forest of seaweed that held a pack of grindylow that kept harassing his silvery haired fellow champion.

As he passed over the seaweed, the pack of grindylow sensed the monster that was above them and scattered away as fast as they could, lest they lose their lives and become a meal.

Fleur noticed the grindylow cease their attack on her person as a large shadow passed her with a sense of fear that spread quickly through her body and when she looked up to see what had passed over her, all she saw was a pair of ice blue eyes on top of the dark shadow.

Harry didn't look back to see if the French champion was alright as he had only a single goal in mind and he wouldn't let anything get in his way but his thoughts slowed as he came upon the village of the merpeople.

In droves the merpeople came out of their underwater huts to see what had given them tingles up their spines and when they spied upon the large creature coming towards their village, many rushed back into the safety of their housing back there were those that took up arms against the creature to ward it off.

In his head, Harry laughed to himself and he propelled his body off of the daemon towards the center of the village, where the four hostages were tied to the center piece rock.

As Harry slowed himself down, he was met by a merman with a coral styled crown sat upon its head, gilded spear in hand with a glare that was directed not at Harry, but at his daemon mount that was still floating in the water, just inside the village.

Harry looked back at his daemon, then back at the chief merman and faster than you could blink, grabbed the merman by the neck and held him with an iron grip.

As soon as Harry grabbed the chief, the rest of the merman that had taken up arms rushed to rescue their chief but were instantly halted by the daemon that, to their horror, began to grab at any merman it could latch onto, and feasted upon them.

The chief looked in horror and fear at the creature that began to feast upon his people and as soon as it had finished the first victim, Harry leaned in close its ear and spoke in a crisp, clear tone.

"My Lord Tzeentch! I offer this sacrifice of the soul of this chieftain in your name!"

Harry grabbed the merman by its head with his hands and with a sadistic smile, his hands alit with warp fire and swirled around the merman's head.

The merman screeched in pain as it felt its head being, what should be impossible under water, burnt with a horrifically painful fire and as the last vestiges of its life was burnt out, the last sight it saw was its people being consumed by what it now knew, to be a daemon.

As the energies of the warp swirled around the village, Harry swam to where the hostages were kept and was about to free Luna from where she was kept but stopped still when he felt a human presence behind him.

Harry slowly turned around in the water and to his mild surprise, Fleur floated in the water in front of him, wide eyes at the sight of the daemon feasting on the last merman and the subsequent sacrifice of the chief.

As Harry stared into Fleur's eyes, he thought he saw something flash in them but just as it came, it quickly left before he could figure it out.

Harry turned back towards the hostages and noted that the smallest of the four had similar hair to Fleur and quickly figured out that there must've been a familial connection between to the two and so he queried with a nod towards the small girl, which got a nod in return.

Harry took out his wand and sent consecutive cutting spells towards the ropes that held Luna and the small girl but turned around and cast the flame spell he remembered from back in his second year.

Fleur watched as Harry took his friend and returned back onto the large creature before turning back towards her sister, grabbed her by her arm and began to swim quickly to the surface.

As she kicked as hard as she could, Harry's words would not get unstuck from her mind as they constantly played out in her mind, floating in the water, flaring ever so slightly until Harry had left her vision.

Now that fractures have appeared and subsequent trials has come to the chaotic trio, will their bond forged through their trials and friendship last? Will Harry and Neville make up and return to their brotherhood? Will Harry's showing of using daemons come back to haunt him? Will Fleur fall into the ironic allure that is the powers of chaos? Find out next time on The Affliction!

Bottom Author's note: Yeah bit of a long one this chapter but once I got going, I just felt that it couldn't be seperated into two seperate chapters because of the flow that I felt writing this one.

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 :)