Harry Potter and the Veil of Time
Chapter Ten: The First Task
By Cybergades
Harry could hear the crowd roaring outside as he ducked back under the tent flap. Cedric nodded at him and smiled, but Fleur looked distracted, her eyes focusing on some patch of ground in the corner of the tent while one leg jostled up and down repeatedly. She rolled her wand back and forth between her fingers nervously. Harry heard a terrifying roar, presumably from the dragon, followed by the crowd redoubling their cheering. After a few moments, he heard Ludo's voice, magically magnified, coming from the stands.
"Ladies and Gentlemen, Hogwarts students and staff and their distinguished guests! Welcome to the first challenge of the Triwizard Tournament! No sense beating around the bush; you can all see the ferocious beast before you, the Swedish Short-Snout. And here comes our first competitor, the man you all know and love, Durmstrang's own Viktor Krum!"
The crowd thundered with cheering, and Harry tried to imagine what might be going on out there. Everything was different now, except for Fleur, who would still be facing the Welsh Green. Harry hadn't stopped to consider the possibility of something like the bag drawing throwing a wrench into his continuity simply by forcing a decision based on pure chance.
"Nervous?" Cedric said.
"Maybe," Harry replied. "To be honest, I was uh…hoping for the Horntail, personally."
"Come off it," Cedric said, waving him off, then scoffed. "Seriously? I'd trade with you if they'd let us, but somehow I don't think that would go over well."
"And he's done it! Krum's gotten the golden egg!" Ludo's voice, slightly muffled by the walls of the tent, rang out, along with the screams of the crowd. Fleur took several deep breaths and prepared to enter the stadium.
"Good luck out there," Harry said. She looked at him, wide-eyed and startled, but her expression slowly softened, and she gave him a tiny nod, clutching her wand tightly in her hand. When the whistle blew, she stepped forward, all the fear evaporating from her as she strode purposefully towards the first task.
"Harry, listen…" Cedric said once they were alone in the tent. "About the dragons…"
"Don't mention it," Harry said with a small shrug. "Just putting everyone on an equal footing."
"Well, erm…thanks, mate," Cedric said. "I would've been totally blindsided if it hadn't been for you. How'd you find out anyway?"
"It seems like everybody who doesn't want me kicked out of the tournament wants to help me cheat," Harry said. "It's not as fun as it sounds. Really, though, don't mention it. You'd do the same for me."
A look of pain passed over Cedric's face.
"The terrible thing is, before you did that for me, I don't really know that I would. Beating you, in the Quidditch match last year, it felt good. You're Harry Potter, man."
"I don't see why that matters," Harry said defensively.
"You wouldn't," Cedric said. "I'm Cedric Diggory, Harry, and nobody knows what that means, and even fewer people knew before I beat you last year."
"Cedric, before I came to Hogwarts I was nothing in the Muggle world, my aunt and uncle couldn't have cared less about me if they tried, and I think they did, to be honest."
Cedric shrugged, but Harry could tell he hadn't anticipated this answer.
"Well," he said awkwardly, "the point, I guess, is that…thank you."
"Really, it was nothing," Harry said, as the crowd rose in a crescendo outside the tent.
"And Fleur Delacour has obtained her golden egg!" Ludo Bagman's voice warbled through the tent walls. Harry swallowed hard, rolling his neck and rubbing his hands together to make sure they weren't getting sweaty. The last thing he needed was for his wand to slip out of his fingers while he was facing a dragon. For a moment, everything seemed like it was getting quiet, like it was going to die down, a great big false alarm, and Harry was going to wake up in the burnt-out wreckage of Hogwarts school and have to go put on a strong face and bury his friends and loved ones.
And then the whistle blew, and Harry snapped to attention, striding out of the tent and into the stadium. The Chinese Fireball was at the opposite end of the arena, crouched low over its clutch of eggs, and it snapped and hissed wildly at the crowd in the stands above it. Though definitely a massive beast, it was definitely much smaller than he remembered the Hungarian Horntail being, maybe half as long, although much wirier and with a look of sharp cunning in its eyes. Holding his wand firmly, Harry pointed away from the stadium, in what he hoped what the right direction.
"Accio Firebolt!" he shouted, at which point the dragon finally noticed him, and Harry felt the ground shake as it charged towards him. He scrambled away from it, taking cover behind several rocks and listening to the loud jangling of the chains keeping it from flying out of the stadium. It sounded like it was being kept on one side of the stadium, and as long as he remained where he was he wouldn't be in any immediate danger. Chancing a glance around the rocks, he was forced to pull his head back almost immediately as a mushroom-shaped ball of fire plowed into the side of the rocks with enough force to blast away several small pieces. Harry shielded his eyes as nearly red-hot rock dust was scattered across his face.
"Come on…" he said to himself, his own voice drowned out by the screams of the dragon and the harsh scraping of claws on metal and stone. Harry's eyes roved across the sky. Had he somehow botched the spell? He felt nauseous even considering it, but his stomach and spirits lifted when he saw his broomstick soaring over the heights of the crowd towards him. The crowd noticed it, too, and their volume rose with their excitement. Taking a deep breath, Harry broke from cover, dashing towards where the broom zoomed low to the ground and practically throwing himself onto it. He heard the crowd gasp and felt the rush of hot air behind him, the hairs on the back of his neck standing up to be promptly singed off by the passing burst of dragon fire. When he kicked off the ground, he felt his broom wobbly slightly, and looked back to see that the bristles of the broomstick were ablaze, caught alight by the very near miss from the dragon. Gritting his teeth, he tried to put out the fire with the sleeve of his robes, but that nearly caused him to fall from the broom altogether, so instead he focused on trying to retrieve the golden egg as quickly as possible.
The Chinese Fireball was standing a good fifteen feet away from its clutch of eggs, but it was directly between Harry and his prize, rocking side to side on its talons, wings flexing excitedly as its eyes tried to follow the boy on the flaming broomstick. Harry lurched quickly to one side, doing a neat barrel roll as the dragon coughed up another ball of fire in his direction. Coming out of the roll, though, his Firebolt continued to misbehave, its handling slugging and unresponsive. Harry tried to pull up, but he found himself drifting towards the top of the dragon's head. If he couldn't correct his course, he would plow straight down the dragon's throat, which would no doubt impress the crowd greatly, even if it would earn him fairly dismal posthumous marks on the task. Harry clutched his wand so hard he feared it would snap in two as the dragon opened its mouth and he saw the angry glow of its flames making their way up its throat swiftly.
"Protego!" he shouted, almost reflexively, as he passed just inches above the dragon's face. He could feel the heat even through the Shield Charm as the fire erupted directly onto his protective spell, spreading around him and sizzling evilly before slowly dissipating into the air. Harry could feel the air nearly sucked out of his lungs as the intense heat of the surrounding fire consumed all the air around him. When the flames cleared, he had to quickly jerk his broom upward as it scraped against a rock outcropping. Swerving wildly, he careened towards the dragon eggs, hand outstretched towards the golden prize. He felt himself pushed forward as dragon fire impacted on his Shield Charm again, and he mentally thanked himself for learning to do at least one spell extremely well. He actually fell off his broom into the dragon's nest, and had to scoop up the golden egg and remount his broom with one hand, soaring into the air as the crowd screamed themselves hoarse.
"And that makes the quickest finish so far by Mister Potter, utilizing a textbook Summoning spell and what looks to be a Shield Charm well beyond a typical fourth-year, well done, well done!" Bagman was shouting, Harry's chest heaved as he tried to regain his breath. He hadn't realized how much the dragon fire had nearly suffocated him when it engulfed his shielding spell. Harry wondered nervously how he could have handled that situation the first time he was a Fourth Year.
"Congratulations, Harry," Professor McGonagall said in his ear as he climbed the stands to where a seat had been saved for him. He turned to catch the tail-end of a rare smile from the aged professor before finding his seat, next to Fleur in the stands. Krum was next to her, looking surly, but she smiled at Harry.
"You did very well," she said with her thick accent. "Better zhen I did, I should think."
"Well, I didn't get to see, but I'm sure you were great," Harry said. "I wish I could have gone earlier, waiting down in the tent was terrible."
"Mais oui!" the quarter-veela girl proclaimed. "I was only down zair for ze first round and it was enough to make me panic!" she giggled slightly. "But all for nothing of course," she added, "your Shield Charm was pretty good, but…" she smiled somewhat condescendingly; Harry had forgotten that she could be like this.
The crowd got a little anxious as several handlers began leading the Chinese Fireball away, and brought in the Hungarian Horntail, trying to calm it with various distractions and placation's as they led it to the clutch of eggs, replacing the missing spot with a new golden egg and backing away slowly. A bit too slowly, Harry thought when one of the handlers got his robes torn by the snap-crack of the Horntail's namesake lethal whip of a tail.
Cedric took a few moments to emerge from the tent when the whistle was finally blown for his entrance, and Harry could see him stop cold at the sight of the Horntail, almost tripping over himself as he hesitated. The Horntail noticed him almost immediately, and stood cautiously near its eggs, its tail thrashing back and forth threateningly behind it. Skirting the edge of the arena, Cedric kept his distance from the dragon, finding himself what looked like a fairly large stone. Mumbling with his wand, he touched the tip of it to the edge of the stone, and the crowd gasped slightly as the rock began to twist and warp, gradually taking the shape and consistency of a small Labrador. Looking slightly guilty, Cedric clapped his hands, shouting and waving his arms, which spooked the newly-minted dog and caused it to run towards the Horntail slightly. When the Horntail moved towards it, however, the dog quickly began to panic, which only drew the dragon's attention even more so.
Cedric used this opportunity to slip around the edge of the stadium, eyes on the twitching horned tail hovering near the clutch of eggs. The iron of the chains holding the Horntail in place clanked loudly as it strained at the edge of its restraints. Cedric broke into a run when a gout of flame erupted from the dragon's mouth, incinerating the puppy almost immediately and eliciting cries of dismay from the audience. Harry wondered, for the first time, he realized, the degree to which objects Transfigured into animals were able to feel pain, or learn, or reproduce. He hoped not, for the sake of the boulder on the ground (which had now reverted to its previously earthen state, albeit significantly scorched). Cedric ducked under the swinging tail and made a dash for the golden egg, but was forced to abort his attempt and dive behind a nearby cluster of stones to avoid the swiping claws on the Horntail. His initial momentum gone, Diggory was reduced to holing up against the rocks where the Horntail's scrabbling claws couldn't reach him. Fortunately, he was too close to the eggs for the dragon to be willing to simply roast him alive, and he was eventually able to get his golden egg by coaxing a thick cloud of fog out of the tip of his wand over the course of nearly fifteen minutes. It was a bit of an anti-climax and a sad loss of momentum, but Harry cheered loudly along with everyone else when the Hufflepuff emerged from the fog bank with the golden egg under his arm.
Harry took second yet again, when the scores were dealt out, with Krum leading, Fleur in third, and an unfortunate Cedric bringing up the rear. His fellow Gryffindors were ecstatic, and Harry tried to join in the festivities and revelry that evening, but all he could think about was that now he had no excuse; he had to move forward, into the true unknown. He had to talk to Dumbledore, and try to find some way of reaching the gateways Merlin had told him about.
The Ministry of Magic was always a somewhat breathtaking prospect for someone taking it all in, especially for the first time. Even the most jaded employee holed up in an office dealing with Muggle relations had to admit that there was something cheer-inducing about stepping into the building and feeling the hum of magical energy in the floor beneath your feet, the ecstatic sensation that many like minded individuals were all working towards the betterment of the wizarding world within those walls. Even as Minister of Magic, Cornelius Fudge still felt like a Junior Minister in the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes every time he emerged from an entry fireplace.
Witches and Wizards tipped their hats to him as he passed, and Fudge felt in particularly good spirits. The first task of the Triwizard Tournament had gone splendidly, he had heard, which was good news for potential cooperation between the disparate institutions of magical education. Fudge had Barty Crouch in his ear lately, yammering on about the importance of international relations between wizarding communities, and Fudge had to admit, something like the Triwizard Tournament made an excellent proxy conflict by which Europe's magical communities could compete with one another while still maintaining a friendly sort of environment that would, he hoped, facilitate the sharing of ideas. Fudge was an idealist as much as he was overweight; just enough to keep him popular with the people.
"Good morning, Mister Fudge, sir!" said Agatha Shelderforth as Fudge exited an elevator onto the lush purple carpeting of the primary level of the Ministry. He smiled warmly at his Junior Assistant, a spritely young girl only a few years out of Hogwarts. Fudge had found that placing people like Agatha around him was an important part of managing his image; they brought a steady supply of enthusiasm to his office, such that the name of Cornelius Fudge would continue to be associated with warm smiles and genuine excitement for the prospect of civil service.
"Good morning to you too, Miss Shelderforth," Cornelius said, doffing his hat to the pretty young witch. "Everything fall apart in my absence, I suspect?" he added with a wink.
"Absolute disaster, sir," Agatha said, laughing perhaps a bit too eagerly at Fudge's joke. "Barnabus finally went off his broomstick and started offering Muggles tours of the building. The good news is that none of them could afford the ten Galleons to get in."
The two shared a laugh before Agatha passed a handful of scrolls into Fudge's hands.
"These are the minutes from the last gathering of the Wizangamot," she said, ruffling through various papers. "And the Bulgarian Minister wants to have lunch with you, to celebrate the ongoing success of the Triwizard Tournament."
"Lovely," Fudge said. Nothing like a workday that went as expected.
"Oh, and a reporter from the Daily Prophet is in your office, sir," Agatha added, somewhat uncertainly. "She seemed to be very interested in doing an interview with you. I told her to wait outside, but she was fairly insistent."
"Probably just a fluff piece," Cornelius said with a wave of his hand. "Very well, then, Agatha, off you go dear."
The Junior Assistant to the Minister curtsied slightly before scurrying off to help another staff wizard who was tottering dangerously under a mountain of scrolls. Fudge waddled a little further down the hallway to the rich mahogany door of his own office. Shutting the door behind him, he turned, eyes widening suddenly as he saw Rita Skeeter seated on the edge of his deck, one leg crossed over the other, glancing at him over the corner of her horn rims.
"Minister," she said, with a level of familiarity Fudge couldn't remember ever sharing with her. "Rita Skeeter, Daily Prophet."
"I know who you are, madam," he said slowly. "I was under the impression that you were doing a cultural study of Central American witches and warlocks, is that not correct?"
"Oh, I knocked that story out in a week," Rita said with a laugh. "Oh, but it's good to be back in Britain, Minister, and it's good to see you again. I hear we're having some moderate success with the Triwizard Tournament."
"Yes, but…that's the story you gave up, isn't it? They put a junior reporter at the Prophet on the assignment, I remember it's the niece of someone on my staff, he was very excited."
"I did give it up, yes," Rita said with a perfect porcelain smile. "I was hoping to cover the issue from the angle of policy, how it affects our relationships with other wizarding communities. I was hoping to get an exclusive with you, maybe even hear some of the information the general public isn't privy to, something juicy to really spice up the story."
"Young lady, I don't know about that," Cornelius said in consternation. "I can give you a few minutes for an interview about the tournament, but I don't know that discussing diplomatic relations this freshly initiated is the best-"
"Come on now, Minister," Rita said, a mischievous edge in her voice. She rose from the desk and approached Fudge. "Don't you think you could spare me a little something? For the readers?" Leaning in close to the portly wizard, she hissed out a warm breath, and a faint purple fog traced its way from her lips to the Minister's mouth. Cornelius Fudge felt very relaxed and content all of a sudden, and he could swear he saw Rita Skeeter's eyes glowing in the most amusingly peculiar way, moments before a pleasant warmth overtook his brain, and he found thinking too hard about anything to be altogether disagreeable.