Here you have it, another chapter of Heir of Dracula! In this chapter, we continue with fourth year! I hope you'll like it. If you don't... well, that kinda sucks...
–
Harold was in a fairly small classroom. Most of the desks had been pushed away to the back of the room, leaving a large space in the middle. Three of them, however, had been placed end-to-end in front of the blackboard and covered with a long length of velvet. Five chairs had been set behind the velvet-covered desks, and Ludo Bagman was sitting in one of them, talking to a witch Harold had never seen before, who was wearing magenta robes.
Viktor Krum was standing moodily in a corner as usual and not talking to anybody. Cedric and Fleur were in conversation. Fleur looked a good deal happier than Harold had seen her so far. She kept throwing back her head so that her long silvery hair caught the light. A paunchy man, holding a large black camera that was smoking slightly, was watching Fleur out of the corner of his eye.
Bagman suddenly spotted Harold, got up quickly, and bounded forward.
"Ah, here he is! Champion number four! In you come, Harold, in you come... nothing to worry about, it's just the wand weighing ceremony, the rest of the judges will be here in a moment."
"Wand weighing?" Harold asked, raising an eyebrow.
"We have to check that your wands are fully functional, no problems, you know, as they're your most important tools in the tasks ahead," Bagman said. "The expert's upstairs now with Dumbledore. And there's going to be a little photo shoot. This is Rita Skeeter," he added, gesturing toward the witch in magenta robes. "She's doing a small piece on the tournament for the Daily Prophet..."
"Maybe not that small, Ludo," Rita Skeeter said, her eyes on Harold.
Her hair was set in elaborate and curiously rigid curls that contrasted oddly with her heavy-jawed face. She wore jeweled spectacles. The thick fingers clutching her crocodile-skin handbag ended in two-inch nails, painted crimson.
"I wonder if I could have a little word with Harold before we start?" she said to Bagman, but still gazing fixedly at Harold. "The youngest champion, you know... to add a bit of color?"
"Certainly!" Bagman cried. "That is... if Harry has no objection?"
"Not at all," Harold said.
"Lovely," Rita Skeeter said, and in a second, her scarlet-taloned fingers had Harry's upper arm in a surprisingly strong grip, and she was steering him out of the room again and opening a nearby door.
"We don't want to be in there with all that noise," she said. "Let's see... ah, yes, this is nice and cozy."
It was a broom cupboard. Harold stared at her.
"Come along, dear... that's right... lovely," Rita Skeeter said again, perching herself precariously upon an upturned bucket, pushing Harold down onto a cardboard box, and closing the door, throwing them into darkness. "Let's see now..."
"I've heard of you," Harold said as Rita Skeeter unsnapped her crocodile-skin handbag and pulled out a handful of candles, which she lit with a wave of her wand and magicked into midair, so that they could see what they were doing.
"Have you now?" Skeeter asked, raising one heavily penciled eyebrow.
"Indeed I have. I was planning on seducing you and acquiring your services that way, but I find you so repulsive, that I will do it... another way."
Rita Skeeter opened her mouth to speak in outrage, when Harold locked eyes with her, and her body went slack.
"You hear only my voice. From this moment on you are my slave," Harold spoke, using his impressive hypnotic powers on the woman. "You will sacrifice everything to protect me, my honor, and my name. In return, I will give you lives. Not big lives. Flies, spiders... insects... And you will be grateful. Understood?"
Skeeter's eyes were glazed over, but now they came back into focus, and she smiled.
"Yes, Master..."
"Good. Now, this piece you are doing for the Prophet... You will write what an innocent, prodigious boy I am, and how unfortunate it is that someone entered me in the tournament. Do you understand, Rita?"
"Yes, Master, I understand."
"In public, you will not call me Master. You will make every appearance as though we merely good off on the right foot, and we are now friends."
"Yes, Master."
"Good. Now, tell me-"
Before Harold could continue, the door of the broom cupboard was pulled open. Harold looked around. Dumbledore stood there, looking down at both of them, squashed into the cupboard.
"Dumbledore!" Skeeter cried with every appearance of delight. "How are you?" she said, standing up and holding out one of her large, mannish hands to Dumbledore. "I hope you saw my piece over the summer about the International Confederation of Wizards' Conference?"
"Enchantingly nasty," Dumbledore said, his eyes twinkling. "I particularly enjoyed your description of me as an obsolete dingbat."
Skeeter didn't look remotely abashed.
"I was just making the point that some of your ideas are a little old-fashioned, Dumbledore, and that many wizards in the streets-"
"I will be delighted to hear the reasoning behind the rudeness, Rita," Dumbledore said with a courteous bow and a smile, "but I'm afraid we will have to discuss the matter later. The Weighing of the Wands is about to start, and it cannot take place if one of our champions is hidden in a broom cupboard."
Harold nodded and headed back into the room. The other champions were now sitting in chairs near the door, and he sat down next to Fleur, looking up at the velvet-covered table, where four of the five judges were now sitting, Karkaroff, Madame Maxime, Mr. Crouch, and Ludo Bagman. Skeeter settled herself down in the corner. Harold saw her slip a piece of parchment out of her bag, along with a long, poisonous green quill.
"May I introduce Ollivander?" Dumbledore said, taking his place at the judges' table and talking to the champions. "He will be checking your wands to ensure that they are in good condition before the tournament."
Harold looked around, and saw an old wizard with large, pale eyes standing quietly by the window.
"Mademoiselle Delacour, could we have you first, please?" Ollivander said, stepping into the empty space in the middle of the room.
Fleur swept over to Ollivander and handed him her wand.
"Hm..." he hummed.
He twirled the wand between his long fingers like a baton and it emitted a number of pink and gold sparks. Then, he held it close to his eyes and examined it carefully.
"Yes," he said quietly, "nina and a half inches... inflexible... rosewood... and containing... dear me..."
"An 'air from ze 'ead of a veela," Fleur said. "One of my grandmuzzer's."
So, the girl was part-veela, like Harold had originally suspected...
"Yes," Ollivander said, "yes, I've never used veela hair myself, of course. I find it makes for rather temperamental wands... however, to each his own, and if it suits you..."
Ollivander ran his fingers along the wand, apparently checking for scratches or bumps. Then he muttered, "Orchideous!" and a bunch of flowers burst from the wand tip.
"Very well, very well, it's in fine working order," Ollivander said, scooping up the flowers and handing them to Fleur with her wand. "Mr. Diggory, you next."
Fleur glided back to her seat, smiling at Cedric as he passed her.
"Ah, now, this is one of mine, isn't it?" Ollivander said with much more enthusiasm as Cedric handed over his wand. "Yes, I remember it well. Containing a single hair from the tail of a particularly fine male unicorn... must have been seventeen hands. Nearly gored me with his horn after I plucked his tail. Twelve and a quarter inches... ash... pleasantly springy. It's in fine condition... You treat it regularly?"
"Polished it last night," Cedric said, grinning.
Ollivander sent a stream of silver smoke rings across the room from the tip of Cedric's wand, pronounced himself satisfied, and then said, "Mr. Krum, if you please."
Viktor Krum got up and slouched, round-shouldered and duckfooted, toward Ollivander. He thrust out his wand and stood scowling, with his hands in the pockets of his robes.
"Hmm," Ollivander said, "this is a Gregorovitch creation, unless I'm much mistaken? A fine wand-maker, though the styling is never quite what I... however..."
He lifted the wand and examined it minutely, turning it over and over before his eyes.
"Yes... hornbeam and dragon heartstring?" he shot at Krum, who nodded. "Rather thicker than one usually sees... quite rigid... ten and a quarter inches... Avis!"
The hornbeam wand let off a blast like a gun, and a number of small, twittering birds flew out of the end and through the open window into the watery sunlight.
"Good," Ollivander said, handing Krum back his wand. "Which leaves... Count Dracula."
Harold got to his feet and walked past Krum to Ollivander.
He handed over his wand.
"Oh, my... This is a first..." Ollivander said the second his long fingers touched the black wand. "I have never seen this design before. Who made it?"
"I never got the man's name," Harold said. "I got it in Scholomance."
Gasps went through the gathering of people in the room, and Ollivander almost dropped Harold's wand in shock.
"S-Scholomance, you say?" Ollivander stuttered. "My word... I have heard of their fine wand-making. Never thought I'd live to see one of their creations... Eleven and a quarter inches... ebony... with the... ah, yes, of course... the hair of a vampire..."
"Naturally," Harold said with a nod.
Ollivander spent much longer examining Harold's wand than anyone else's. Eventually, however, he made a fountain of wine shoot out of it, and handed it back to Harold, announcing that it was in perfect condition.
"Thank you all," Dumbledore said, standing up at the judges' table. "You may go back to your lessons now... or perhaps it would be quicker just to go down to dinner, as they are about to end..."
Harold got up to leave, intent on engaging Fleur Delacour in conversation, but the man with the black camera jumped up and cleared his throat.
"Photos, Dumbledore, photos!" Bagman cried excitedly. "All the judges and champions, what do you think, Rita?"
"Yes, let's do those first," Skeeter said, nodding. "And then perhaps some individual shots."
The photographs took a long time. Madame Maxime cast everyone else into shadow wherever she stood, and the photographer couldn't stand far enough back to get her into the frame. Eventually, she had to sit while everyone else stood around her. Karkaroff kept twirling his goatee around his finger to give it an extra curl. Krum skulked, half-hidden, at the back of the group. The photographer seemed keenest to get Fleur at the front, but Skeeter kept hurrying forward and dragging Harold into greater prominence. Then she insisted on separate shots of all the champions. At last, they were free to go.
–
"You wanted to see me, Professor?" Harold asked after the wand weighing ceremony, stepping into Albus Dumbledore's office. Dumbledore himself was sitting behind his desk, and he was gazing at Harold over the rim of his half moon-shaped spectacles.
"Yes, Harold. As you know, I am not prejudiced. Please, sit down."
Harold nodded and sat down in front of Dumbledore's desk.
"Now, I am not prejudiced. I have known about your vampirism ever since you came to this school, so I have allowed you to have certain privileges, given your race's noble traits and certain elegance. I have allowed you to walk around without the school uniform, and your nightly escapades have gone without being berated for it."
"Not to be rude, but do you have a point, Professor?" Harold asked, raising an eyebrow. Dumbledore nodded.
"Yes, my point is that your vampirism is nothing that I frown upon. What I do frown upon, however, is you biting and feeding on Miss Parkinson. I know you do not care who knows if you are a vampire, and you have a right to be proud. However, I would prefer it if you did not transfer your vampirism to anyone else."
"Don't worry, Professor, I am not the normal kind of vampire," Harold said softly. "I was born a vampire. I can only transfer my vampirism by biting someone and then feeding them my blood. Pansy Parkinson has volunteered, without any influence on my part, to let me feed on her. I believe she enjoys the anemic feeling she gets from it."
"I see..." Dumbledore was silent for a few moments, merely gazing at Harold with his piercing, blue eyes. "I have noticed, Harold, that you have quite a peculiar effect on the opposite sex. You have a certain charm that has them falling in line behind you, and-"
"Professor, with all due respect, do you have any proof that I am a wicked fiend who preys on the innocent females of this school, or is this all merely speculation?"
Dumbledore gave a chuckle.
"Oh, Harold, I do not believe that you are, as you say, a wicked fiend. I know that you are a kind, gentle vampire, despite your ancestry. You have displayed an amazing amount of self-control that I have never before seen in a young vampire such as yourself."
"Thank you for the compliment, Professor, but believe me, I haven't used any form of magic to control the Slytherins," Harold said calmly, staring right back into Dumbledore's eyes. "They follow me out of their own free will, and Pansy allows me to feed on her out of her own free will."
Dumbledore gazed intently into Harold's eye, using Legilimency on him, and Harold, who had already prepared a number of false memories, had to suppress a smirk when he felt Dumbledore sifting through them. Then, Dumbledore smiled.
"I am delighted to hear it, Harold. You have made yourself some very good friends, indeed. May I also say how happy I am to see that you have made friends with young Mr. Malfoy? I am sure you will be a positive influence on him."
Harold nodded and rose from his chair.
"Will that be all, Professor?"
"That will be all, Harold. Oh, and Harold?" Dumbledore said, stopping Harold just as he reached the office door. "Your new caretakers... they wouldn't have had anything to do with the deaths of the Dursleys, would they?"
Harold smirked now and looked back at Dumbledore.
"Come now, sir. Even if I knew, you know I wouldn't tell you."
With that, Harold left Dumbledore's office.
–
The day after the Weighing of the Wands, Rita Skeeter published her piece about the Triwizard Tournament, and it had turned out to be not so much a report on the tournament as a highly colored life story of Harold. Much of the front page had been given over to a picture of Harold. The article (continuing on pages two, six, and seven) had been all about Harold, the names of the Beauxbatons and Durmstrang champions (misspelled) had been squashed into the last line of the article, and Cedric hadn't been mentioned at all.
The article featured long, drawn-out sentences that Harold had never spoken in his whole life, but which fit well in with the article painting him as the benevolent uncrowned king of Slytherin, who had done away with the House's prejudice by befriending the Gryffindor Muggle-born Hermione Granger.
This all left Harold getting much admiration, not just from the Slytherins for 'taming' Rita Skeeter, but also from the other Houses, for making Slytherin better. The only ones who didn't believe the article were the Weasleys, save for Ginny.
"He rid the House of prejudice?" Weasley spoke up one morning when they were waiting outside the Potions classroom. "What rubbish is this?"
Harold had learned to ignore the babbling of Weasley and his ilk, and instead spent his days in the library with Hermione and Draco, poring over any books they could find to further increase Harold's already impressive wealth of knowledge.
Viktor Krum was in the library a lot, too, and Harold wondered what he was up to. Was he studying, or was he looking for things to help him through the first task? Hermione often complained about Krum being there, not that he bothered them, but because groups of giggling girls often turned up to spy on him from behind bookshelves, and Hermione found the noise to be distracting.
"He's not even good-looking!" she muttered angrily, glaring at Krum's sharp profile. "They only like him because he's famous! They wouldn't look twice at him if he couldn't do that Wonky-Faint thing-"
"Wronski Feint!" Draco said, looking mortally offended that Hermione had got the name wrong. Hermione, however, just rolled her eyes at him.
On the Saturday before the first task, all students in the third year and above were permitted to visit Hogsmeade. Harold, Draco and Hermione decided to go, to get away from everything.
That night, howls sounded across the school grounds as Harold sat at the very top of the Astronomy Tower, looking over everything in boredom.
The gamekeeper and Care of Magical Creatures teacher, Hagrid, came out of his hut, walking toward the enormous Beauxbatons carriage. He raised his hand and knocked three times on the door bearing the crossed golden wands.
Madame Maxime opened it. She was wearing a silk shawl wrapped around her massive shoulders. She smiled when she saw Hagrid, or at least, from the Astronomy Tower it looked as though she was smiling from what Harold's vampire eyes could see.
The two exchanged words, and Hagrid held out a hand to help Madame Maxime down the golden steps of the carriage.
Madame Maxime closed the door behind her, Hagrid offered her his arm, and they set off around the edge of the paddock containing Madame Maxime's giant winged horses, with Harold, curious, exploding into mist and lazily drifting after them.
"Wair is it you are taking me, 'Agrid?" Madame Maxime asked playfully, in a voice that Harold would have thought was beautiful had it not been accompanied by the sight of the woman herself.
"Yeh'll enjoy this," Hagrid said gruffly, "worth seein', trust me. On'y... don' go tellin' anyone I showed yeh, right? Yeh're not s'posed ter know."
"Of course not," Madame Maxime said, fluttering her long black eyelashes.
And still they walked, Harold drifting lazily after them still, as they came around the perimeter of the forest, the castle and the lake ending up out of sight, and Harold heard something. Men were shouting up ahead... then came a deafening, earsplitting roar...
Hagrid led Madame Maxime around a clump of trees and came to a halt. Harold materialized some distance away from Hagrid, and crouched low in the darkness, unseen with his cloak wrapped around himself. His eyes widened at what he saw.
Dragons.
Four fully grown, enormous, vicious-looking dragons were rearing onto their hind legs inside an enclosure fenced with thick planks of wood, roaring and snorting. Torrents of fire were shooting into the dark sky from their open, fanged mouths, fifty feet above the ground on their outstretched necks. There was a silvery-blue one with long, pointed horns, snapping and snarling at the wizards on the ground, a smooth-scaled green one, which was writhing and stamping with all its might, a red one with an odd fringe of fine gold spikes around its face, which was shooting mushroom-shaped fire clouds into the air, and a gigantic black one, more lizard-like than the others, which was nearest to them.
At least thirty wizards, seven or eight to each dragon, were attempting to control them, pulling on the chains connected to heavy leather straps around their necks and legs. Harold watched as, high above him, the eyes of the black dragon, with vertical pupils like a cat's, bulged with rage. It was making a horrible noise, a yowling, screeching scream...
Harold had seen enough. Bursting into mist once more, he drifted away toward the castle again.
–
"Dragons?" Hermione whispered the next day as the trio sat in the library. "You're going to face a dragon?"
Harold, looking through Tales of Beedle the Bard, gave an "Mhmm," as he flipped a page in the book.
"Why are you so calm?" Draco asked, looking a bit nervous. "I'm not the one going to fight a dragon, yet I'm scared witless."
"And what would fear accomplish?" Harold asked. "Besides, if that dragon can really kill me, I welcome it to." He gave a soft chuckle. "It would be ironic, given my name..."
They sat in silence for a moment. Then, Harold spoke again.
"Hermione."
"Yes?" Hermione asked, looking up from her book.
"When the Yule Ball comes, will you go with me?" Harold asked, and Hermione looked surprised. "As friends, I mean. I don't want to ask anyone else and give them some false hope that they can be my girlfriend or something like that."
"Well, yes," Hermione said, her cheeks a bit pink. No doubt, she hadn't even imagined being asked, let alone this early. "Of course I'll go with you."
"Well, I guess that leaves me with Pansy," Draco said, looking a bit disgusted. "Not that I'd like going to the ball with a suck-puppy..."
The day of the first task arrived, much faster than Harold had anticipated, and before Harold knew what was happening, Snape came walking down the path between the Slytherin and Ravenclaw tables in the Great Hall. Lots of people were watching him as he approached Harold.
"Dracula, the champions have to come down onto the grounds now. You have to get ready for your first task."
"Okay, Professor," Harold said, standing up. He really would have wanted some blood before the first task. He'd thought he'd have time for it, but evidently, that was not the case.
"Good luck, Harold," Draco said from across the table. "We'll be watching."
Harold left the Great Hall with Snape. He didn't seem like himself. His jaw muscles were tense, and he carried himself more rigidly as he walked.
"Keep a cool head, Dracula," he said as they walked down the stone steps out of the castle. "I don't want you ruining the reputation of Slytherin House by turning tail at this stage."
"Don't worry, Professor. A Dracul never flees," Harold said.
Snape was leading him toward the place where the dragons were, around the edge of the forest, but when they approached the clump of trees behind which the enclosure would be clearly visible, Harold saw that a tent had been erected, its entance facing them, screening the dragons from view.
"You are to go in here with the other champions," Snape said softly, in his usual menacing voice, "and wait for your turn, Dracula. Mr. Bagman is in there. He shall be explaining to you the procedure." With a stiff nod, Snape walked off, and Harold went inside the tent, his head held high, not a sign of fear on him. Well, he certainly hoped so, considering he didn't actually feel any fear.
Fleur Delacour was sitting in a corner on a low wooden stool. She didn't look nearly as composed as usual, but rather pale and clammy. Viktor Krum looked even surlier than usual, which Harold supposed was his way of showing nerves. Cedric was pacing up and down, and Harold realized that he was the only one who didn't know what the first task was.
"Harold! Good-o!" Bagman said happily, looking around at him. "Come in, come in, make yourself at home!"
Bagman looked somehow like a slightly overblown cartoon figure, standing amid the pale-faced champions. He was wearing his old Wasp robes again.
"Well, now we're all here... time to fill you in!" Bagman said brightly. "When the audience has assembled, I'm going to be offering each of you this bag," he held up a small sack of purple silk and shook it at them, "from which you will each select a small model of the thing you are about to face! There are different, er, varieties, you see. And I have to tell you something else, too... ah, yes... your task is to collect the golden egg!"
Harold glanced around. Cedric had nodded once, to show that he understood Bagman's words, and then started pacing around the tent again. Fleur and Krum hadn't reacted at all. Perhaps they thought they might be sick if they opened their mouths?
And in no time at all, hundreds upon hundreds of pairs of feet could be heard passing the tent, their owners talking excitedly, laughing, joking... Oh, how Harold would have loved a bite to eat before the first task...
Next thing Harold knew, Bagman was opening the neck of the purple silk sack.
"Ladies first," he said, offering it to Fleur.
She put a shaking hand inside the bag and drew out a tiny, perfect model of a dragon, the green one. It had the number two around its neck. And Harold knew, by the fact that Fleur showed no sign of surprise, but rather determined resignation, that what he had been suspecting was right: Madame Maxime had told her what was coming.
The same held true for Krum. He pulled out the scarlet dragon, which had the number three around its neck. He didn't even blink, just sat back down and stared at the ground.
Cedric put his hand into the bag and out came the blueish-gray dragon, the number one tied around its neck. Knowing what was left, Harold put his hand into the silk bag and pulled out the dragon he'd recognized as a Hungarian Horntail, and the number four. It stretched its wings as he looked down at it, and bared its miniscule fangs.
"Well, there you are!" Bagman said. "You have each pulled out the dragon you will face, and the numbers refer to the order in which you are to take on the dragons, do you see? Now, I'm going to leave you in a moment, because I'm commentating. Mr. Diggory, you're first, just go out into the enclosure when you hear a whistle, alright? Now... Harold... could I have a quick word? Outside?"
"Certainly," Harold said, and he got up and went out of the tent with Bagman, who walked him a short distance away, into the trees, and then turned to him with a fatherly expression on his face.
"Feeling alright, Harold? Anything I can get you?"
A pint of blood. Harold wanted to say it, but instead he just shook his head.
"Got a plan?" Bagman asked, lowering his voice conspiratorially. "Because I don't mind sharing a few pointers, if you'd like them, you know. I mean," Bagman continued, lowering his voice further still, "you're the underdog here, Harold... Anything I can do to help..."
"No," Harold said, shaking his head and feeling insulted at being called an underdog. He'd show him underdog... "No, I have everything worked out."
"No one would-" Bagman started, but just then, a whistle blew. "Good lord, I've got to run!" he said in alarm, and he hurried off.
Harold walked back to the tent and saw Cedric emerging from it, looking green in the face.
Harold went back inside to Fleur and Krum. Seconds later, they heard the roar of the crowd, which meant Cedric had entered the enclosure and was now face-to-face with the living counterpart of his model.
Harold walked over to Fleur and took her hand, kissing her knuckles.
"You're trembling, draga mea," he spoke, smirking. "But don't worry, show some confidence in yourself."
Fleur glared at him, pulling her hand out of Harold's grasp.
"Please, don't talk to me right now, Monsieur Dracula. I am formulating a plan right now..."
Harold chuckled. "Oh, come now, draga mea, we both know you knew about the dragons beforehand, and have already formulated a plan to get past them. You're only gathering your courage right now, and I have some to spare."
"What do you want wiz me?" Fleur asked, and Harold shrugged.
"I just want to get to know you. Is that so bad?"
"You are only fourteen," Fleur said, only to get another shrug from Harold.
"I don't look it. If anything, I'd say I look closer to your age."
"Maybe you do, but fact remains zat you are only fourteen," Fleur said, tossing back her hair. "You are just a leetle boy."
Harold narrowed his eyes. He was about to yell at the girl, but collected himself quickly, chuckling instead.
"After these tasks, we'll see."
After fifteen minutes of listening to the screamed, yells, and gasps of the crowd, accompanied by Bagman's commentary, they heard the deafening roar that could mean only one thing: Cedric had gotten past his dragon and capture the golden egg.
"Very good indeed!" Bagman was shouting. "And now the marks from the judges!"
But he didn't shout out the marks. Harold supposed the judges were holding them up and showing them to the crowd.
"One down, three to go!" Bagman yelled as the whistle blew again. "Miss Delacour, if you please!"
Fleur was trembling from head to foot. Harold called after her, "Courage, draga mea, courage!" as she left the tent with her head held high and her hand clutching her wand. He and Krum were left alone, at opposite sides of the tent, one of them holding his head high, listening to the crowd, the other holding his head down, avoiding the other's gaze.
The same process started again... "Oh, I'm not sure that was wise!" they could hear Bagman shouting gleefully. "Oh... nearly! Careful now... good lord, I thought she'd had it then!"
Ten minutes later, Harold heard the crowd erupt into applause once more... Fleur must have been successful, too. A pause while Fleur's marks were being shown... more clapping... then, for the third time, the whistle.
"And here comes Mr. Krum!" Bagman cried, and Krum slouched out, leaving Harold quite alone.
Harold reached into his pocket and took out a bloodpop. It was better than nothing. He unwrapped it and put it in his mouth, humming. What should he do against the dragon? Maybe... Hm...
"Very daring!" Bagman was yelling, and Harold heard Krum's dragon emit a horrible, roaring shriek, while the crowd drew its collective breath. "That's some nerve he's showing... and... yes, he's got the egg!"
Applause shattered the wintery air like breaking glass. Krum had finished, and it would be Harold's turn any moment.
He waited. And then he heard the whistle blow. Holding his head high, he walked out through the entrance of the ten. And now he was walking past the trees, through a gap in the enclosure fence.
There were hundreds and hundreds of faces staring down at him from stands that had been magicked there since he'd last stood on this spot. And there was the Horntail, at the other end of the enclosure, crouched low over her clutch of eggs, her wings half-furled, her evil, yellow eyes upon him, a monstrous, scaly, black lizard, thrashing her spiked tail, leaving yard-long gouge marks in the hard ground. The crowd was making a great deal of noise, but Harold ignored them, focusing only on the Horntail.
Harold gave a long sweep of his cloak, and in the blink of an eye, before him sat three stone gargoyles, looking as though they had been forcibly ripped off of a building. Harold waved his hand over them, and the eyes of the gargoyles, coldly staring straight ahead, suddenly came alive. Slowly, the gargoyles rose from their sitting positions, and gave off terrifying shrieks.
Then they turned to Harold, and dropped to their knees, their heads lowered.
"Your Master commands you now, attack that dragon," Harold spoke in Romanian, and the gargoyles slowly rose to their feet again, turned toward the Horntail, gave off those terrifying shrieks, and then took to the air, before flying straight at the Horntail, whose eyes shifted from Harold to the gargoyles.
The gargoyles crashed into the dragon with enough force to lift it off the nest, then started tearing into it with their long, sharp claws.
The Horntail roared and started snapping at the gargoyles as Harold rushed forward, toward the nest. As he got within ten feet of the nest, however, the Horntail turned its head away from the gargoyles trying to tear it apart, and looked at Harold, shooting a jet of flame straight at the young Dracula.
The crowd screamed when the flames made contact with Harold, but to their immense surprise, Harold exploded into a black mist, which moved away from the fire, rematerializing over the nest as Harold, who grabbed the golden egg amongst the real eggs, while the Horntail turned its attention back to the gargoyles with a roar. One of them had just sliced through the dragon's scales with it's claws and into its hide spraying a spurt of blood that spattered the eggs with the dark liquid.
Harold walked off to thundering applause, and gave a wave of his hand. The gargoyles shimmered and disappeared, leaving a confused Horntail, who clambered back onto her nest, back to watching Harold suspiciously.
Dragon keepers were rushing forward to subdue the Horntail, and, over at the entrance to the enclosure, Snape was walking briskly toward him, neither looking relieved nor disappointed. He looked like he normally did.
"Good work, Dracula," Snape commented silkily as he lightly pushed Harold toward the entrance of the enclosure, out of it, and into a second tent, where Madam Pomfrey stood, looking worried.
"Dragons!" she said in a disgusted tone, pulling Harold toward her. The tent was divided into cubicles. He could make out Cedric's shadow through the canvas, but Cedric didn't seem to be badly injured, even though Harold could smell burnt flesh, as he was sitting up, at least. Madam Pomfrey examined Harold from head to toe, talking furiously all the while. "Last year dementors, this year dragons, what are they going to bring into this school next? You're very lucky you weren't hurt. But you're all dried up. Here, sit," she said, pushing Harold down on a cot. She waved her wand, and a blood bag dropped into Harold's lap. Madam Pomfrey handed him a straw. "Here. Now, drink. I'll make sure no one sees."
"If Draco or Hermione comes, they can see it. They know," Harold said, and Madam Pomfrey made her way out of the tent. Within moments, Draco and Hermione burst into the tent, just as Harold stuck his straw through the blood bag and started sucking on it.
"You were brilliant!" Hermione said squeakily. There were fingernail marks on her face where she had been clutching it in fear. "Y-You... That mist... I thought... Oh, Harold!"
Harold merely raised an eyebrow as he kept sucking the blood out of the blood bag. Hermione only just now seemed to notice what he was doing.
"Ew..."
"It's not bad," Harold said, holding out the blood bag to Hermione and Draco. "Care for a sip?"
Draco, to Harold's surprise, shrugged and said, "Alright, I'm game," before leaning down and taking a sip of the blood, straightening up a second later and smacking his lips.
"That was disgusting..." Hermione muttered, but Draco shook his head.
"Actually, it has this kind of metallic taste. It wasn't bad."
"See? He agrees," Harold said as he went back to sipping his blood. Once he'd finished, he put the empty blood bag on the cot and got up.
"Come on, Harold, they'll be putting up your scores," Draco said, still smacking his lips. "Interesting aftertaste."
Harold chuckled, picking up the golden egg and clapping a hand onto Draco's shoulder.
"Draco, my friend, you'd make an excellent vampire."
"I'll take that as a compliment," Draco said with a smirk.
"You were the best, you know," Hermione said. "Cedric transfigured a rock into a dog, trying to make the dragon go for it instead of him-"
"But the dragon changed its mind halfway through and decided it would rather have Diggory than the Labrador, so it burned him pretty back, although he got the egg."
"Fleur tried some kind of charm to put the dragon in a trance," Hermione continued. "It kinda worked, as the dragon got sleepy, but then it snored a jet of flame, and her skirt caught on fire. And Krum, well, he was probably the best after you. He hit the dragon with a Conjunctivitis Curse in the eye. Sadly, though, the dragon trampled its eggs, and you weren't supposed to do any damage to them, so they took marks off for that."
They had reached the edge of the enclosure. Now that the Horntail had been taken away, Harold could see where the five judges sat, right at the other end, in raised seats draped in gold.
"It marks out of ten from each one," Draco supplied, and Harold saw Madame Maxime raise her wand in the air. What looked like a long silver ribbon shot out of it, which twisted itself into a large figure nine.
"Could be worse," Draco admitted, smirking.
Mr. Crouch came next. He shot a number nine into the air.
Next, Dumbledore. He too put up a nine. The crowd was cheering harder than ever.
Ludo Bagman... ten.
And now, Karkaroff raised his wand. He paused for a moment, and then a number shot out of his wand, too... five.
Hermione looked like she was doing the calculations in her head. Then, she smiled brightly.
"You're two points above Krum!" she said happily. "You're in first place!"
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