Thank you everybody for all those reviews. I hope that all those asking for fast updates have by now realised that I post one chapter a day :). This is the second to last chapter. I hope you enjoy it.
Why Igniting the Potter Temper is a BAD Idea
The time until the second task was a very happy time for Harry Potter. Fleur had taken to sitting with him at the Gryffindor table during meals, he got to spend a good amount of his free time with her, studying together for their NEWTs, as Fleur, like Harry, had every intention to take them at the end of the year. Madame Maxime had arranged for her to get an additional month of preparation time due to the Tournament. She would take some of the NEWT tests one month after they were normally taken. She was taking six NEWT classes, namely Charms, Potions, Arithmancy, Ancient Runes, Transfiguration and History of Magic. The French teaching was a lot better than Binns. As Harry shared five of her classes, they exchanged information on the subjects and helped each other with their homework. They didn't talk about the second task. They had agreed that they would compete fairly and just do their best.
Harry had already figured out that the screeching sound was a magical language, Mermish in particular. So, the task would be in the Black Lake. He had told Aaron how to solve the riddle and he would wait what his brother would come up with as a solution. If he hadn't managed to find a way to breathe underwater for an hour until two weeks before the task, he would help more, but for now he thought with the information available that he had it would be good for Aaron to use his head to find a way to solve the riddle on his own. And his friends would definitely help him find a way. He had also reminded Aaron to not just concentrate on the method, but also possible obstacles on his way. But their father took care of teaching Aaron many spells for that Purpose on the weekends.
His own battle plan was set. He would use gillyweed to breathe underwater with a bubblehead charm as the backup plan if the plant stopped working while he was still underwater. The time one had with it differed from person to person and the type of water. He only wondered what the organisers would place at the ground of the lake. It would have to be something that the champions would really miss. He only hoped that they weren't as stupid as he feared to take hostages. If they did, well, Harry would make sure that they regretted the day they came up with the stupid idea.
He had also found a great way to keep Aaron on his toes at all times. They didn't know after all if the one putting his name into the Goblet would try another method on top of the tasks, using the Tournament as a distraction, should his plans not work as he hoped they would. After all, Aaron had done much better than anybody could expect in the first task. Jasmine and Dahlia were delighted to ambush their second oldest brother at random times outside of class Hours in all Kinds of ways. They were especially proud when they managed to hit him and his group of friends with colour potion water bombs. And that with permission of the head boy, who had warned his head of house of the training method he had thought up. As everything could be remedied with a scourgify charm, she grudgingly allowed it to continue.
It helped with the twins not feeling left out, as their family needed to concentrate on Aaron's training right now, which meant their own training was pushed back a little bit. They still got training from Harry when he had time, but they understood that this was a life or death situation for Aaron. And neither of them wanted to see Aaron hurt because he didn't prepare well enough. Thus, with some input of their father, they took to light pranks that helped school Aaron in Constant Vigilance. It was unnecessary to say that Professor Moody fully approved their method and even gave a few hints how to improve their ideas.
Two weeks before the second task Harry asked Aaron if he had found a way to breathe an hour underwater and was happy to hear that Aaron had, thanks to Neville, found out about gillyweed too. He had already ordered the plant from an apothecary, so Harry was relieved that he wouldn't have to fear too much for his brother. He was more concerned for Fleur. Veela were beings connected to fire and air, water would be the hardest environment for her to be in. He only hoped that she would be okay.
Harry was ready to tear into the judges. They had indeed chosen hostages and Fleur was beside herself. Her little sister Gabrielle had been placed in the lake. She was just eleven and her powers wouldn't be able to protect her properly. Harry swore that, if Fleur wouldn't be able to save her, he would. He walked over to Viktor.
"Viktor, I want to ask you a favour," Harry said seriously.
"In a competitive task?" Viktor asked surprised.
"It's only one thing. Fleur's hostage is her little sister Gabrielle, she is only eleven and cold water, if she is exposed to it too long, can kill her, or at least seriously harm her magic. I want to ask you that if you come across the hostages close to the end of the hour we have, and Gabrielle is still there, and neither I nor Fleur are there, please get her out of there next to your own hostage," Harry asked.
"Stupids. Even I know you don't place Veela children in cold water. I vill do vat I can," Viktor promised.
"Thank you, Viktor," Harry said gratefully.
Harry walked over to Fleur and tried to calm her down.
"Viktor and I won't let anything bad happen to Gabrielle. If you don't get there, one of us will bring her back," Harry assured her.
"Zank you, 'Arry," She replied shaking in his embrace.
Finally, the judges gave the signal for the champions to start their task. Harry and Aaron put the gillyweed into their mouths, Fleur put a bubblehead charm on her head and Viktor simply jumped into the water, doing whatever he had planned.
Harry had been cautious and placed a tracking charm on Cedric's watch. He knew that Cedric always wore it and so he knew where to go. He signalled Aaron and Fleur to simply follow his lead. At the moment, he couldn't care less for the competition, not when a girl's life was at stake. He led the group down to the place where he was led by his tracking charm. They avoided the seaweed, as Harry knew that it was a dwelling ground for grindylows. They passed the giant squid that only looked at them with interest but didn't attack them. The reason was probably that Harry and his group had regularly played with it since their second year.
They made good time to the merpeople village. They found it after about twenty minutes. They swam over to the four that were tied to a statue in the middle of the village. Katie was Viktor's hostage, Hermione was Aaron's, somewhat surprising, but she was among the people he was closest to, but they had placed his date to the ball, Sylveena Esmeraude, as a higher probability, Cedric was Harry's, probably because they could hardly put his girlfriend into the lake when she was a champion, and his Little sisters would cause a lot of trouble with the Potters, and Gabrielle for Fleur. They all swam down to the ropes that held their hostages when the merpeople started to close in while raising their tridents, seemingly intent to harm Fleur. Harry wouldn't have any of it.
"Veela!" One merman furiously exclaimed, "You dare come down to our land."
Harry quickly erected a shield around the whole group and let his aura flow freely, shocking the merpeople. He pointed his wand at the one trying to attack Fleur. His message was clear as was the power everybody felt. Hurt her and die. This show of true power was enough to have the merpeople back away and Aaron quickly cut all the ropes that kept the hostages down. Thankfully Viktor was already approaching in a half man half shark form. Thus, Katie didn't have to stay here. The four champions covered each other's backs and swam back to the surface, Harry swearing to curse the judges.
They broke the surface together, Viktor reversing his transformation.
"Vat vas that?" He asked confused.
"Merpeople and Veela are enemies. Stupid organisers to not know zat!" Fleur raged, "To zink what Gabrielle could have gone through if her allure had already manifested."
"Be sure that I will point out that foolishness pointedly. I won't take this silently," Harry promised, after he had swallowed the antidote to the gillyweed. He also handed Aaron some of it, to allow him to come out of the water.
Gabrielle was questioning Fleur in rapid French and her lips were blue from the cold.
"She needs to get out of here quickly. I have an idea," Harry said and whistled loudly on his fingers.
The giant squid appeared, and Harry got him to carry the whole group to the land while he hit Gabrielle with the strongest warming charms that he knew. Viktor, Cedric and Fleur followed quickly and also placed the charms on Aaron, Katie, Hermione and then themselves. Soon they reached the stands where the ones watching the task were assembled, applauding, even if some wondered why the champions had all come back together on the back of the giant squid.
Harry was the first one to jump from the squid, the others followed soon, some helped by levitation charms.
"Madam Pomfrey, come over here!" Harry shouted, the healer already on her way.
"What's the matter, Mr Potter?" She asked business like.
"Check Gabrielle. Her magic doesn't take well to cold water. She is a Veela child for Merlin's sake!" Harry called out enraged.
The he turned towards the judges, eyes blazing, unleashing his powerful aura.
"Which of you completely incompetent bastards had the glorious idea to use Gabrielle as Fleur's hostage?" He shouted with amplified voice, "Did you even care that her magic could be greatly damaged by being in the cold water for hours?"
The students that were assembled felt for the first time the true strength of Harry Potter. All of them, especially the dark-raised children, swore to not get on his bad side. They realized that it would be extremely painful to do so. Wind seemed to swirl around Harry with tremendous power and it looked as if he still had full control over it.
The five judges gulped involuntarily at the suffocating feeling Harry projected on them. And the worst part was that they had only themselves to blame for this. They hadn't even thought about the consequences of putting a Veela child underwater in an ice-cold lake for hours. The only thing they avoided was taking either Jasmine or Dahlia Potter as hostages for their older brothers, as they feared the revenge of their mother too much. On top of that the students were also glaring at them and the four champions showed impressive unity in their fury. Fleur seemed to only not transform into the Veela bird form because her magic had been weakened too underwater.
"Harry, please calm down," Dumbledore brought out only to be blown from the judges' stand into the cold lake.
Fred and George were commenting on how far he had flown and how it had to hurt to hit the water surface with that much force. Next was Madame Maxime, which many were in awe about, due to her size and weight, Karkaroff followed then Bagman and Wintergold. Many students were both impressed with that much power, and terrified to have it directed at them, but then again, Harry had iron control over it. Many drew parallels between the reputation of Lily Potter and what her oldest son was showing here in front of them. Again, the children from dark families swore to not make him their enemy. It would prove to be a point of frustration for certain people in the future, as rallying supporters for the dark cause proved to be very difficult, as most were smart enough to realise that it was suicide to go against the side on which Harry Potter was. Not to mention Lily. She was famous for killing Bellatrix Lestrange after all and had only added to that fame by reading Albus Dumbledore himself the riot act. Repeatedly at that.
The five now drenched judges watched horrified as the seventeen-year-old young man unleashed his power into a small storm.
"Somebody calm him down!" Dumbledore shouted back to the other teachers in attendance, "He will hurt the students if he goes on."
But the students only felt a soft breeze passing them instead the storm. Only those trying to help the judges or attacking Harry got to feel the real power of the storm. Severus Snape, Minerva McGonagall and Hagrid joined the five in the lake, the other teachers understood quickly that it was a mistake to go against Harry. It was smarter to wait. And for punishment this was actually tame. The merpeople kept their distance from the unleashed elemental attack. No way would they suffer from the foolishness of humans, because they called the rage of the powerful one. Harry's storm went on for ten minutes before he let it die down. He was in full control all the time. When Dumbledore and the other judges managed to get out of the lake, they looked worse for wear while the champions and their hostages were clad in warm clothes.
"Mr Potter, what is the meaning of this?" Dumbledore asked angrily.
"That, headmaster," Harry said menacingly, "is what happens if you endanger people that I care for. That is what you can expect to happen if anybody threatens the life of people I care for. I won't take things like the stupidity or perhaps even malicious intent like the one you showed towards Gabrielle's well-being lying down anymore. You also still haven't found out who put Aaron's name into the Goblet. It sure doesn't inflict confidence in you. Everybody who has studied other magical races at least a little, knows that Veela aren't meant to be in the water for long.
"Sure, they can swim for pleasure, but you won't find any Veela who likes to swim for longer periods and not at all in water colder than 20 centigrade. It attacks her magic. With Veela children the exposure to such an environment like a lake with a temperature close to zero centigrade can be lethal! Every single one of the champions, even Aaron, knew that. So, I wonder why the heads of the most important magical schools in Europe didn't. Or the head of the Department of International Magical Cooperation. I can accept that the task was planned long before the champions were chosen, so that Fleur couldn't be given any advantages, but hell, you should never have used Gabrielle as her hostage, knowing that it endangered her life!"
The students that hadn't known that bit of information gasped how serious the situation had been and why Harry was rightfully furious. Everybody had seen how deeply he felt for Fleur and nearly all the students knew that he hated it with a passion if others were hurt for no reason. Some noticed James and Lily Potter close to the group of champions and hostages, silently backing their son's outrage with the organisation of the Tournament up.
"If you needed to go through with this stupid task, you should have taken her father as the hostage, he would only have been a bit cold, but not in mortal peril, but let me guess, you didn't even ask if you could use Gabrielle as the hostage. Otherwise you would have known about the danger to Gabrielle. I wonder what the Delacours will say about that," Harry asked, knowing that from the pale looks on Bagman's face that they had indeed not asked any of the guardians of the underage hostages for permission.
When the judges finally got around to marking the task, the champions couldn't care less.
"We refuse all together to take any points for this stupid task!" Aaron said and the other three simply nodded, "It is simply wrong to mark something that put a girl completely uninvolved with the task in mortal danger."
The champions in a group with their hostages, Fleur insisted to call her family healer for Gabrielle immediately, walked away, angering the judges that had hoped to look good with the task, but all the people around were talking about were their failures and the incredible display of power that Harry Potter had given.
Rita Skeeter was deliriously happy. She had a huge scandal at her hands, and this time, she didn't need to embellish anything. The truth was so deliciously tragic already that she could write the events of the second task without having to resort to half-truths and implications. While normally, she would have tried to spin a tragic story around the older Potter brother, she wasn't suicidal. After seeing that kind of power unleashed, she didn't want it directed towards her. No, thank you. Still, she wrote in terrible detail what kind of fate could have befallen young Gabrielle Delacour.
While many people in England disliked halfbreeds, a child being put in mortal danger because the adults had, again, failed to do their homework worked perfectly to have the papers sold rapidly. She managed to include the love story between Harry Potter and Fleur Delacour, which had to have driven the Hogwarts Champion to react the way he did. She wrote some backstory on the position of the Delacours in France in her article, and how it could be expected that there would be consequences for the actions taken by the parents of both the champions and the hostages (if they weren't the same that was).
She reminded the readers of the paper of the deadly past of the Tournament, and how only assurances that it would be much safer this time around had allowed it to be resurrected. The question was how putting a young girl who hadn't signed any contract for the Tournament followed that promise. Not to mention that the one putting Aaron Potter's name into the Goblet of Fire still hadn't been caught. The one messing with the charms on the object had finally been identified by the DMLE, but it turned out that he had been imperiused to do it. Which had the aurors on high alert. That kind of dark magic hadn't been seen since the war against You-Know-Who, and nobody wanted to return to those dark times.
James and Lily Potter had assembled their friends and allies. Harry's outburst during the second task and his detailed description of the failures of the organisers made them act as soon as possible. They were all angry how they had ignored the parents of the children that had been the hostages. The Delacours were preparing a law suit against the British Ministry, Hogwarts and Beauxbatons for endangering the life of Gabrielle. The Bells too were prepared to fight over the point that their daughter had been placed in the lake without their permission. For Hermione, the Potters would do it, as they were her designated magical guardians.
When Aaron had become friends with Hermione in his first year, Lily had made sure that Hermione's rights would be defended in the wizarding world. Sadly, for muggleborns, if nobody did it, they were basically without rights. They suspected it might be a reason why Hermione was chosen, instead of Sylveena, who was a halfblood with a politically influential pureblood father. Her mother also was a halfblood, from a family that had a well-to-do business in the magical world. Hence why James Potter was Hermione's magical guardian with the consent of her parents. Normally the head of the muggleborn's house would take the position, but experience showed that they didn't take that responsibility very serious.
Following the Potters' example, other halfblood or pureblood parents had taken over the magical guardianship for the friends of their children. So, for example had the Macmillans fought for Justin Finch-Fletchley's rights after he had been involved in the petrifications of the basilisk that had been loose in the castle in Aaron's second year. Thankfully a quick solution had been found after the first few petrifications. Aaron had given the suspicious diary that he had found to Harry, who had identified it as a dark object and had handed it over to Sirius. Being a Black, Sirius had determined what it was and had destroyed it with fiendfire. It had led to Ginny Weasley telling them how the diary had possessed her. Thanks to that, they had found out where the entrance of the Chamber of Secrets was located.
Ginny had told them that Tom Riddle, who had possessed her, had spoken with hissing sounds to open the entrance, ironically in a girl's bathroom. They had concluded that it had been parseltongue that opened the entrance. Aaron, who had a certain gift with magical creatures, had convinced a snake to open the entrance for them as they lacked a parselmouth. The aurors had gone down armed with a battalion of roosters and had dealt with the basilisk quickly. It had slept in the main chamber thankfully and it had been easy to kill it. The corpse had been harvested for potion ingredients with half of the winnings being given to the victims of the petrification and the other half was used to fund the needs of Hogwarts, for example thirty proper brooms were bought for the flying classes.
All of the assembled were furious how the organisers and the heads of the schools had disregarded the safety of the children and ignored the parents or guardians in regard of questioning for permission. It would come to bite them, as these particular parents were politically powerful.
Harry and Fleur were sitting on the couch in the small room that Harry had transfigured for the Yule Ball. Now he had set up wards around it to give them some private time away from curious students and annoying teachers. Many had tried to give Harry a hard time over his reaction towards the judges, but Harry had simply ignored them or glared at them so hard that they were afraid of him. After all, normally Harry was very pleasant and polite. The ones to fully back him up were Madam Pomfrey and Professor Flitwick. Madam Pomfrey, as her diagnostic spells had shown her just how dangerous the task had been for Gabrielle, and Professor Flitwick because of his goblin heritage. That the heritage of a part Veela had been ignored in favour of a show enraged him. After all, it was known that Fleur was part Veela and so they had to know it about Gabrielle too.
Professor McGonagall, always a loyal Dumbledore supporter, had tried to give him a tongue lashing, but one look and the icily asked question if she could simply accept that an innocent girl was put in mortal danger for entertainment shut her up quickly. As Harry was used to letting Snape's insults pass by him, he hadn't had much trouble on that front. Some other teachers were too used to believing that Dumbledore was always right and so were displeased with how he had handled the situation but knew better than to anger Harry.
Right now, Harry was enjoying Fleur's reward for showing the judges exactly what they had done wrong. He was very happy, as it involved a heated making out session with his gorgeous girlfriend. They had both agreed to wait with going beyond kissing and touching with their clothes on, but Fleur knew exactly how to show her boyfriend a good time within those limits.
James Potter was smiling, reading his oldest son's last letter home. He really hoped that this time Harry had found the right girl for him. His past girlfriends had been immensely disappointing. His first one had been Tanya Hilbers from his year in Hufflepuff. They had started dating in Harry's fourth year. But she had been more interested in getting connected to the powerful Potter family, especially as it had been Aaron's first year at Hogwarts, and nearly all students were going crazy over him. That relationship had ended after two months. Harry's second girlfriend had been Bianca Stevens, a muggleborn girl from Ravenclaw. She had been infatuated with Harry's Quidditch abilities and hadn't been able to see the whole person. After one visit to Hogsmeade where things to talk about ran out after half an hour that relationship had ended.
In Harry's fifth year he had briefly dated Alicia Spinnet from the Quidditch team, but after two weeks both had decided that they were better off as friends than boyfriend and girlfriend. That had been Harry's best relationship so far. Last had been Rebecca Selwyn from Ravenclaw, who had tried to profit from Harry's family name and didn't really have any feelings for him. Her father had told her to try and make Harry fall for her to have the Potters' and Blacks' support for his political agenda. Harry had been crushed when Angelina told him what she had overheard in the girl's bathroom. Since then Harry had been really careful with girls and Fleur Delacour was the first one he got really close to after that. It probably helped that Fleur as a Veela knew how difficult finding a partner, who saw you for who you were, was.
On top of things, while Fleur came from a politically active family, the Delacours lived in France, which meant that even if Harry should one day marry Fleur, it wouldn't do that much for their political standing. They were already at the top in France. From what James had seen of Apolline and Jean Delacour, they were very down to earth people, even if they portrayed the influential people they were all the time. Lily and Apolline had already become friends over discussing how to best fry the organizers of the second task. Jean and James had fled with Timothy Bell when their wives started to discuss torturing specific male anatomy of Dumbledore, Wintergold, Bagman, Fudge and Karkaroff. There were some things no male wanted to hear about, even if he wasn't the target of a woman's ire.
Harry had written that he wanted to invite Fleur to Potter Manor during the summer and asked for permission, as Fleur would need to be added to the wards to make it possible. James saw no problem with that, as long as Fleur swore an oath that she didn't want to hurt any members of the Potter family. After the attack from Voldemort that had been made possible by Peter betraying them, James had added additional layers of security to his family home. They would meet with the Delacours over dinner on Easter Monday to give the Potters and the Delacours more opportunity to get to know each other better. If James had overheard Lily talking to Alice right, Jasmine and Dahlia had also struck up a friendship with the one-year younger Gabrielle. They were the same age after all, and Gabrielle was the only Beauxbatons student staying at Hogwarts her age, which let her be a bit lonely. And the three girls quickly bonded over watching the developing relationship of their older siblings.
From a pure testosterone driven male point of view James was incredibly proud that Harry had managed to get a Veela as his girlfriend, as a father he was just happy that Harry and Fleur seemed to click like he and Lily did after he had managed to grow up enough for her to look past his former arrogance. Looking back, he had really behaved like an arse, especially towards Snape, but it wasn't as if there hadn't been lots of reasons to hate the boy back then. Snape had been hanging around the darker oriented students, knew lots of dark magic and was overall a bully to others whenever Lily didn't look closely.
During first year, they had only exchanged insults, from second year on the marauders had retaliated for bullying with pranks. They had gone too far from fourth year on, he knew that now, but they had been arrogant and too sure of their abilities back then. That nobody had reined them in didn't help at all. He was just glad that his children, while fun-loving, knew how far something was considered a prank and when it went into bullying. And if any of the younger ones would overdo things, Harry would step in.
He couldn't be more grateful than he was that he had vehemently ignored Dumbledore's plans to concentrate on Aaron because of that stupid prophecy. Harry would never have turned into the incredible young man he was if he hadn't. His son was powerful, more so than him. He was about to surpass his mother soon too. In two years, none of them would hold a candle to Harry's power and abilities. And he feared how Harry might have resented them, had they favoured Aaron, or even neglected Harry completely. It had been a trap they had avoided by distancing themselves from Albus Dumbledore. He would never have thought how much the old headmaster had manipulated things, but in hindsight there was much that could be blamed on him.
Well, now he would concentrate on getting his younger son through the Tournament safely and then hopefully celebrate Harry's victory. Aaron didn't want to win, he only wanted to survive. He thought his brother was the one who deserved the glory, as he was the true Hogwarts champion and had made sure that he got through the tasks safely.