One Dragon -Two Dragons … And Harry's Tricks
It was the day for the first task. Aaron had got the disillusionment charm mastered yesterday and was proficient in the distraction spells he was going to use. He still was really nervous. His parents had come for the task and had promised him that they were all ready to protect him if it became necessary. Harry also had a serious look on his face. They only had the concern of which dragon Aaron was going to face. He would probably be okay with one of the less naturally vicious breeds, but the Chinese Fireball and the Hungarian Horntail would be a huge problem. Hence, Harry had a plan in mind. He wouldn't call it cheating, only evening out the odds. He had heard from his father that the Ministry had enchanted miniature models of the dragons. So, if he managed to draw either the Horntail or the Fireball himself, and have Krum draw the other, Aaron would manage. While making a vicious breed fall asleep would be much harder, he had the raw power to succeed.
Finally, they were all told to go down to the champions' tent. Aaron stayed next to Harry. Both their uniforms looked alike, representing the Hogwarts and Gryffindor colours. On the backs, there were H. Potter for Harry and A. Potter for Aaron. Once inside the tent, Harry kept a hand on Aaron's shoulder to keep him as calm as possible. One sharp look at Bagman made the ridiculously eager man shrink into himself and keep his distance from Aaron. How could he be this chipper when they were about to face dragons? The man must be disturbed in the head from getting hit with too many bludgers. Finally, it was time to be 'officially' informed about the task. Judging from the looks on Fleur's and Viktor's faces they had known about the task beforehand as well. It wasn't really surprising, as Hagrid had shown Madame Maxime the dragons and Karkaroff always sneaked around somewhere.
Thankfully, even Rita Skeeter, the reporter that was covering the Triwizard Tournament for the Daily Prophet knew better than to anger Harry Potter. Or write anything that could direct Lily Potter's fury towards her. While she had written about the irregularity of the fourth champion being chosen, she had also pointed out that the investigation of the Goblet of Fire had shown that somebody whose magical signature wasn't connected to any of the champions, nor any student of Hogwarts, had tempered with the goblet.
Statements from the auror office were printed, saying that the Goblet had been manipulated long before it was set up at Hogwarts. The unspeakables, without a doubt the leading authority for any kind of obscure and little-known magic, could determine that the switch in the number of participants had been performed sometime in September. And nobody had thought to check the Goblet of Fire before it was set up at Hogwarts. It had been tested and proven workable the fifth of September, the tempering happened afterwards. It led to the aurors trying to match the recorded magical signature from the Goblet with any known witch or wizard in the country, but it was slow-going.
Her biting comments concentrated on how security measures during the period of time when the pieces of parchment with the names could be entered had been neglected by Dumbledore and how the Ministry should have ensured that the Goblet wasn't accessible before it was sent to Hogwarts. The last part put Bagman into a really problematic position, as his department had been in charge of the Goblet of Fire before it was brought to Hogwarts. Rita also found out that a member of his department, one Bertha Jorkins, was missing and had been for months. Bagman got fire from all sides. Harry knew from Sirius that Bagman would have been obliged to report her missing once she hadn't returned a week after the planned date. But he still claimed she would turn up soon, probably thinking it was still August.
Sirius didn't believe that and had put her onto the missing people list. The Magical Law Enforcement Patrol was tasked with investigating hints of her possible whereabouts. As long as no involvement of dark magic or dark wizards was indicated, it wasn't a job for the auror department yet. Thankfully, Amelia Bones, the head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement shared his opinion and was on guard for any kind of suspicious behaviour. But, as once the tempering with the Goblet was finished everybody that was at least seventeen years of age could have put Aaron's name into the Goblet, it was doubtful they would ever find out who did it. It could even have been some seventh-year who was put under imperius curse. That one was very hard to detect, and even harder to overcome.
"So, now that we are all here, let's get to the task you will have to finish. Your task is to get the golden egg, while getting past an opponent. There are different err varieties. So, who wants to go first?" Bagman asked.
Harry stepped forward as this would suit him perfectly to make sure that Aaron didn't get a vicious breed.
"Alright, Mr Potter," Bagman said and held the bag up to Harry.
Harry put his hand into it and performed a quick scan, which he had looked up before this task to have a way to ensure that he could ensure that Aaron wouldn't get too bad an opponent, then he put one of the wandless charms he knew on the model that felt the least vicious and put the counterpart of it on Aaron without anybody noticing. He pulled his hand out and was faced with the Chinese Fireball. Next up was Fleur who got the Swedish Shortsnout. Krum was next and flinched when he pulled out the Hungarian Horntail. Aaron then pulled out the last one, the Welsh Green. Now the order was Fleur, Aaron, Harry and Viktor.
When Fleur went outside, Harry took Aaron over to a bench and had him sit down there, before he went through mental calming exercises with Aaron. He knew that Aaron wasn't a coward, but he had never been confronted with a situation like this. Harry had blocked most of those things or their parents had. It had been the right thing to do. Aaron had enough to deal with, thanks to his fame. While the Potters hadn't kept their children in the dark about important things, there were some things that children had to be protected from experiencing. And being in mortal danger belonged into that category. Once Aaron was out of the tent, Harry forced himself to stay calm.
"You really vorry about him," He heard Viktor say. He turned around and saw his competitor standing there with his arms crossed over his chest.
"I do. He is my little brother and he has got more than enough on his plate that he doesn't need this shit. And honestly, I have problems thinking about facing a dragon; I don't want to imagine how much he has to struggle to suppress his fear like he does," Harry answered.
"You felt for the dangerous dragons in the bag, didn't you?" Viktor asked.
"If my drawing one of the more vicious breeds increases Aaron's chance to survive this insane task, I will gladly take the danger on me," Harry declared, realising that Viktor was more perceptive than he had expected. To be fair, he had been a bit too busy to really get to know his fellow champions much.
He wouldn't admit to making sure that Aaron got a less vicious dragon. Neither would he reveal that he could use some wandless magic. It was a good ace in the hole.
"I understand. I vould do the same for my sister," Viktor said and got a smile from Harry.
With all the distractions about the task and Aaron's involvement in the Tournament they hadn't got to do their seeker showdown.
"We still have to do that challenge," Harry mentioned.
"Yes, let's do it after the task," Viktor agreed, and they shook hands on it.
Then applause and cheering was heard.
"And our youngest champion has his egg in an impressive show of ingeniousness," They heard Bagman call out.
"Thank Merlin, he is safe," Harry brought out relieved, "Now I can concentrate on my dragon."
"You better should. Good luck," Viktor said.
"Same to you," Harry said and walked out of the tent when his name was called.
He carefully entered the arena and quickly spotted some red accentuated against the rocks and the high walls. He put a disillusionment charm on himself and sneaked away, trying to not startle the dragon. His first plan depended on keeping the dragon as calm as possible to have an easier time to use his secret weapon. He had never told anybody, but he had a gift with voice magic. Hence why, for him, the easiest way to deal with the dragon would be combining sleeping runes, herbs that were used in sleeping potions and his voice. He silently summoned a bag with the herbs and stones with the runes etched into them that he had prepared. He had put invisibility charms on it beforehand. The dragon wouldn't notice it. He prepared the area for his needs keeping as quiet as possible. Once the dragon was surrounded by the herbs and the runes he started to sing.
James and Lily Potter were surprised when they heard the voice of their oldest son singing an old lullaby. It was Beautiful and they felt themselves calming down without trying to.
"I didn't know that he had inherited that particular gift," James said touched, "My grandmother had it too. That's one of the lullabies she always sang for me when I slept over at my grandparents' house."
"It's so beautiful. But could he really sing a dragon to sleep?" Lily asked.
"No, not without additional support, but I think I can smell some herbs that work in sleeping potions," Remus commented, sitting next to them, "He must have decided to combine several aspects to make his dragon fall asleep. It's quite ingenious."
"I think he put up a runic field as well, there are some stones that are subtly glowing all over the field," Sirius added, looking closely onto his godson's performance down there.
"Put together that might work," James nodded proud of his son's idea, crossing his fingers that it would work like Harry had planned.
Harry watched satisfied how the dragon fell asleep. He didn't stop singing when he slowly approached the nest. He carefully took the golden egg without disturbing the real eggs. He walked away equally slowly, knowing that rushing things would end badly. Finally, he was out of the reach of the dragon and cancelled the disillusionment charm and the runic field by summoning the stones to him. He held up the egg and cheers and applause thundered around him, waking up the dragon.
"Now that's how it is done folks. The Hogwarts champion Harry Potter managed to get his egg without a fight and without getting injured. In fact, I doubt his dragon even knew that he was there," Bagman commented. "Now let's see what the judges think about this performance."
Harry looked at the judges. Madame Maxime was first and put up a ten. That was a good start. Mr Wintergold also held up a ten as did Dumbledore and Bagman. Karkaroff looked green but put an eight up. Biased bastard, but with forty-eight points he should be in first place normally. Harry waved smiling to the audience before he was pulled to the side by Madam Pomfrey who simply didn't want to believe that he got away without any injury if she didn't check it for herself. After she did, she gave him a smile and let him go watch the last champion go against the dragon.
Harry went to sit with Fleur and Aaron.
"Congratulations, Harry. You were fantastic," Aaron exclaimed cheerily.
Now that he had the task done, he was much happier.
"Thank you, Aaron. Did your attempt work out for you?" Harry asked.
"Yes, you were right, distracting a powerful creature and sneaking past it worked well. Dobby really went out of his way to help me. My dragon was more interested in the feast I summoned from the place I stored it than me," Aaron said happily, "I only had to perform the charm to increase the smell and it went for it. I could sneak up to the nest and take the golden egg and get away before she was finished eating."
"That's great. I'm happy you did well. How did you approach the task, Fleur?" Harry asked.
"I 'ad a similar idea as you. I used my veela heritage to strengthen a sleeping charm, but sadly my dragon snored. I put out ze fire on my skirt wizout problem, but it cost me points," Fleur said slightly annoyed.
"It still was a good idea. How many points did you two get?" Harry wanted to know.
"I got thirty-seven and Aaron got thirty-nine," Fleur said.
"I think I lost some because it wasn't 'showy' enough for Bagman and Karkaroff," stated Aaron, "I couldn't care less for the biased judging from Karkaroff. I survived and wasn't hurt, that's what counts for me," stated Aaron with conviction, which Harry could only agree with.
Then Viktor was called, and they concentrated on the arena. Then something Harry didn't like at all happened. Viktor had obviously decided on the power approach and sent a conjunctivitis curse at the Horntail's eyes. The dragon howled in pain when the spell hit. And then to Harry's horror she stumbled towards the nest. The eggs would be crushed if she got there. He acted on instinct, calling up his magic and summoning the real eggs out of the way of harm. He was just in time to save four of the five eggs, but one sadly got hit by the dragon's tail and got smashed.
"Damn, I wasn't fast enough!" Harry moaned.
He continued to pull the eggs out of harm's way and then looked how the Horntail was trying to still hit Viktor. He had immense problems keeping out of the way of the beating tail. He managed to get past the dragon and got the egg, but then the tail hit, and Viktor flew crashing into one of the walls. It looked really painful. One of the spikes of the tail had also hit and the shoulder was bleeding dangerously. Harry saw that Aaron was chalk-white.
"That's the reason why I warned you against angering your dragon, Aaron. They are physically much stronger than us. Their magic is also special and they are an endangered species. The organisers should never have brought real eggs here where they could be in harm's way," Harry told his brother.
Aaron again swore to never dismiss his older brother's advice. Had he tried to distract the dragon with something that threatened the eggs, like a predator, he could have been caught in her lashing out against everything.
Fleur observed the Potter brothers closely. She could see that they were quite close. There was no jealousy from Harry Potter towards his younger brother's fame. And Aaron seemed to be a really nice boy. Their relationship reminded her of her and Gabrielle's bond. Aaron clearly looked up to Harry, and why shouldn't he? Harry Potter was basically the perfect wizard. Powerful, smart and compassionate, but with a high moral code. On top of that he was gorgeous. She wouldn't mind getting to know him better. After all, there were really few men that weren't affected by her allure. And here he was, conversing normally with her.
Viktor had to be treated by Madam Pomfrey before he could see his marks. Bagman gave a six, Madame Maxime a five, Dumbledore a six, Wintergold a five and Karkaroff showed his bias and gave him a ten, which caused massive booing from the audience. Then a red-haired man who was one of the dragon handlers came over to them and looked at Harry.
"I wanted to thank you for your quick reaction that saved four of the five eggs of the Horntail, Mr Potter. The dragon preserve is in your debt for saving four future dragons of such an endangered species," He said.
"You're Charlie Weasley, aren't you?" Harry asked, remembering how he and Fred had smuggled Norbert out to go to Charlie. Charlie nodded. "I gladly helped. I simply hate it if anybody, not matter if creature or human being, dies unnecessarily."
Charlie looked happy to hear that and levitated the eggs away, following the group that had stunned the Horntail which had still been rampaging around.
Once the audience had been informed about the date of the second task, the champions were called inside the tent. Viktor was lying on a bed, wrapped in bandages. He was also a bit dazed, probably from a pain potion.
"Ah, you're all here, that's good. As you probably heard a few minutes ago, the next task will be on the twenty-fourth of February. We are going to give you something to do for that time," Wintergold commented, "The golden eggs that you collected are more than the objective to the task, they also hold the clue that you need to prepare for the next task. Now I wish you a good day, I think you all will want to see your friends and celebrate your success in the task."
It was obviously more directed towards Harry, Aaron and Fleur. Viktor didn't really seem to be able to comprehend what was being said. Well, Harry hoped that he would get better soon. They still had that challenge to see who the better seeker was and with how the dragon had hit him, Harry considered him punished enough for his stupid attempt.
When Harry and Aaron walked back to the school, they were met by their friends and families. James, Sirius and Remus told them how proud they were of them and Lily fussed over the two boys. Jasmine and Dahlia beamed at how well they had done, and their friends praised their achievements massively. Harry enjoyed all the positive attention. He was pulled away by his friends, after his family had had their share of him, to celebrate his first place in the Tournament ranking. Aaron was the same with his friends, who were just glad that he had done so well in such a dangerous and difficult task.
If anybody noticed people from other houses in the Gryffindor common room during the huge party that had been organised by the Weasley twins, they didn't comment on it. Their Champions had done really well in the task and that had to be celebrated. And it was common knowledge that Harry Potter't best friend was Cedric Diggory from Hufflepuff. He had been seen helping Harry with research in the library, even if Harry had spent lots of time preparing his little brother, to ensure he survived. Thus, Cedric and a few others were considered honourary Gryffindors, outside of Quidditch of Course, but with that on hold this year, nobody cared if they joined in the celebrations. And Gryffindor parties had gained somewhat legendary status.
Voldemort sat in his hideout looking at Wormtail. While the man was a weak idiot, he had his uses. Mostly his animagus form that was ideal to spy on people as it wasn't noticed. But he was hardly competent. That he had managed to place the imperius curse on one of the people guarding the Goblet of Fire when it was kept at the Department of Magical Games and Sports for a short time was something of a miracle. That had allowed him to let them place the needed modification of the number of participating schools onto the Goblet. Getting the name into the Goblet once the modification was done, was actually simple for Wormtail. His small animagus form easily allowed him to sneak in and put the piece of parchment with Aaron's name into the Goblet of Fire. In the middle of the night, nobody noticed a rat running along the corridors of the school.
How he had hoped to use Barty Crouch junior for his plans, but sadly he had been caught at the World Cup riot by the oldest Potter boy. He had found out About Barty not being dead or at Azkaban by using legilimency on Bertha Jorkins, who he had killed after her use was over. But Barty had been captured again by Harry Potter before he could contact him for the Mission he had in mind. It was infuriating how the Potter family managed to thwart his plans again and again. First Aaron Potter, thanks to the protection of his grandparents' sacrifice and a burst of accidental magic from Harry Potter, had survived his killing curse. Then, when he had been so close to getting the Philosopher's Stone in 1992, again the Potter brothers had stopped his minion Quirrell. Harry had outduelled Quirrell while Aaron had secured the stone. And Harry had only been fourteen at the time. He had enormous potential and huge magical power.
He was a serious threat and needed to be eliminated. While he wasn't the one the prophecy spoke about, he wouldn't let his brother face him alone. Then there was James Potter. He was influential and well-connected. He had upgraded the wards around Potter Manor greatly and even he wouldn't be able to get inside, no matter what he tried. Then Lily Potter, who was more powerful than a mudblood had any right to be. He had heard how she was feared by those that crossed her and her family. Rumours were that she was working for the Department of Mysteries next to the work she did for her and her husband's business. He wouldn't be surprised if it was true.
His plans had only come this far, as Wormtail would do anything to help him along. It had only been a lucky coincidence in combination with an incompetent new auror, who had been fired for this blunder, that Wormtail had managed to escape from Azkaban the year before. The newbie auror had overlooked that Wormtail was an animagus when the quarterly cleaning of the cells in the block took place and had forgotten to place the anti-animagus shackles on him, just using normal ones. With all other prisoners it would have been enough, as the constant dementor presence would have sucked out too much of their magical ability. But desperation and the actually low amount of magic needed to transform into an animagus form made it possible. Wormtail, in a rare flash of intelligence, had transformed into a rat and hurried away from the prison. And honestly, even he, the Dark Lord, would have trouble finding a rat among thousands that infested that place.
Wormtail may be a coward and a mediocre wizard, but he had his uses and had come to him directly after escaping prison, knowing that joining him was the only way to be safe from his former friends, which he had betrayed. Especially the Potters.
Aaron also had a lot of power, though he didn't seem to be as talented as his brother. But still, from what Wormtail had reported about his performance in the first task, he had done really well for his age. He was ranked second in the Tournament after his brother. He would need to think something up for the last task. If Harry continued with his performance, it would be hard to complete the plan. Well, he would see how the second task would go before deciding the final touches.