Chapter 8
The school Durmstrang was subdued.
There were those within the school who supported the ideals of Odessa – many of whom would have liked to have got the contumelious part goblin alone – and the ease with which the nine children had risen and contemptuously turned armed men into rats without even getting their wands out was frightening! Also that Dumbledore had IGNORED the killing curse – though those who were close enough whispered that he too now bore, or had had revealed on him, the zig-zag scar.
The killing curse was not bounced without some penalty; and Dumbledore was joined only to Severus who had managed to raise diffusion spells before the spells were cast. This then had taken a little more effort than if it had been but a single spell on a full bloodgroup member. However Dumbeldore's apparent ignoring of the spell was awesomely impressive.
And the English, they laughed and chatted as normal as though this was not out of the ordinary! Apart from the ones from the boys' school, they were subdued enough.
Miles Grant had suggested to Professor Hellibore that if even the rejects as champions from the other English schools performed wordless wandless magic as a matter of course like that, that perhaps Hellibores Academy was a little out of its league in this competition.
Engelbert Hellibore had been frightened into almost wetting himself; and had been secretly very impressed, which made him answer angrily – for he was as pigheaded as he was inept – that such defeatist talk was not for them!
Miles shrugged and took himself off to the library to try to find some clue to the first task clue that the contestants had been given.
There was a week in which to solve it; and they were to stay here during that time in this cheerless castle.
Miles and his brother had already determined to try to get to know the Hogwarts bunch better; and find out from the couple of boys from Prince Peak what it was like being in essentially a girls' school.
Jem and Fabian and Seagh shrugged.
"We've always been co-ed" said Jem "It'd be nice to have a few more chaps; but most of the girls in our crowd are chaps anyway. Jade and Lydia and Senagra; and Angelica and Sylvia aren't so dusty either. There's even numbers in the new intake, so that's all very nice. And a bit more racial mix too; it was very strange to be in a school of all humans bar Senagra. Sort of….incomplete."
That was an interesting viewpoint; and Miles was a boy to whom finding out and learning was a priority so he filed that away!
They had all read the poem, set by the Beauxbatons contingent.
The riddle read,
"I have a much resistant hide
Though trolls are known to hitch a ride
Born to the purple, high I wander
Who am I, I hear you ponder!
Avoid a gore to avoid your gore
And you may then go on once more."
Jade had read it, looked at Lionel, laughed and said,
"Well that's simple enough, isn't it?"
Lionel grinned.
There were enough clues after all; sharp horns to gore and make you bleed, purple coloured, dwelling up high and occasionally used by trolls. Only the Graphorn fitted that description; though from what Newt Scamander had to say on the subject, more trolls ended up with graphorn scars than ever learned to ride. If he recalled correctly it was worth four stars on the Ministry classification of how dangerous it was.
"Dangerous beasties" he said "But then, so are dragons and acromantula. Got an idea on tactics?"
Jade shrugged.
"I thought I might do what I do well; worked for Harry. You?"
"I thought I might go read a book on bull fighting."
"Lionel! You posy little BASTARD! You're going for a quite?" she pronounced it correctly, keetay, Lionel noted.
He grinned.
"Why not?"
"Heh, easy to see YOU're part Malfoy!" laughed Jade.
"I don't expect to beat you on time whatever I do; so I thought I'd go for massive style and cool points" said Lionel calmly.
He had said it at first to tease; but why not? Graphorns charged at a threat.
Getting the beast to brain itself rather then having to do anything to it was a very good idea, for as well as having hide tougher than dragon hide, the creatures were inherently resistant to spells. Which meant that trying to confund or stupefy it was virtually impossible. Jade had indicated that she meant to use a broom to fly past it and retrieve whatever they had to retrieve – the usual corollary to the avoidance or defeating of the large beasts of the first task – and get out without going close.
It had its merits.
Jade flew like a demon; if not as well as Harry Potter then certainly close. If she pulled it off she would be very fast. Lionel was no slouch on a broom but he cried beat where Jade was concerned.
They had both been on Slytherin's house team after all; and he knew her capabilities rather well.
No, he would rely on getting points for panache and hope to have a task he could complete faster than Jade for the second one.
It was between him and Jade; of that he was certain.
He smiled kindly at the Hellibore boy.
"Tough one, isn't it?" he said.
"I'll say!" said the boy "Completely mystifying clue! I'll have to spend some time in the library and hope to find some lead!"
Lionel did a double take.
"You mean you haven't got the beastie involved yet?"
Miles stared.
"Have you?"
Lionel shrugged.
"Well it seemed rather to leap out with all those heavy clues….. it's in Newt Scamander after all, whom we use for care of Magical Beasts theory."
"Oh, it's not a subject we study…. Will there be a copy here do you think? What was it called? I say, is it cheating to ask you that?"
"Fantastic beasts and where to find them…..the author is Newt Scamander. I don't think it's cheating; you're not privileged to have as full a curriculum as we, that's not your fault. And you so will want to be prepared; read it carefully" said Lionel.
The French boy, Timothée, took himself off to the potions dungeon, for the full facilities of the school were open to the visitors too. Lionel glanced in and was mystified.
"Oh, garrotting gas" said Jade, also glancing in. "That might work so long as he doesn't knock himself out too. A potioneer; I might even talk to him a bit."
"You are such a skill snob" said Lionel.
"Yes" said Jade "You managed to become a potioneer; and that I respect even more than someone who's born to it you know, because it's sheer hard work that got you your 'E'."
"Thanks" said Lionel "It was down a lot to your dad."
"And he couldn't have helped you if you hadn't helped yourself" said Jade. "WHAT a waste of time this is; I shall go and see what dark tomes they have in the library; it'd be worth knowing. And I might just destroy some of them a little bit at that" she added thoughtfully.
Lionel decided to spend his time with Freya and Ross, and they went for long rambles about the countryside.
One day, having seen the lie of the land from a tactician's viewpoint might come in handy.
That he was not the only one was evidenced by meeting Severus, Jade and a selection of the other blood group at various points, both walking and flying on brooms.
The appearance of a grim looking man from around the turn of a path almost made Lionel jump; but he remembered his manners and wished the man
"Guten tag".
The man regarded him.
"If you were wise, English boy, you would not wander too far" he said "There are wolves in the forest."
Lionel smiled blithely.
"Oh ordinary wolves don't trouble anyone Mein Herr, they are more afraid of man than man is of them. And if there are werewolves, well I have killed enough of them not to fear them any more. We in England know what to do with aggressive werewolves." And he smiled brightly.
Odessa had its agents about then.
Hedda Schrempf had been questioned sternly by German authorities.
Madam Bacsó announced dryly that the unfortunate Madam Schrempf had been acting under the imperius curse laid on her by some unknown organisation that wished to upset the competition for the purpose of fixing the betting.
"And I have a bridge in Brooklyn for sale" came an audible voice from the Prince Peak table.
Madam Schrempf was said to be too much upset by the affair to come to join everyone else for meals.
As Severus said cynically to the combined Prince Peak and Hogwarts MSHG when they met to run as usual, what she meant was, she was afraid of being legilimensed.
"Too late though" he added laconically "Did THAT the moment I recognised her. I'd give something to find out what she said when she found out neither attack had succeeded though. And what Gerhardt said. I bet he frothed, no Seagh, it's not worth the risk just to satisfy curiosity."
"What about to find out wha' the shilpit wee sumpf is planning next?" asked Seagh.
"He won't be" said Dumbledore "Gerhardt had planned meticulously for everything in the double attack; except one thing. Failure. He was so sure that with Severus and me out of the way he would succeed easily; and when he was stopped dead he was left without an option. He gets rather easily flatfooted."
"Just as well" said Lionel. "Sir, is this ruddy competition all a ruse to get him to overreach himself and hopefully commit so many forces that he's seriously weakened and unable to do anything now?"
"Let's just say it had that as a part of it" said Dumbledore. "Severus and I were not displeased that he went so far as a double pronged attack and committed hundreds of troops."
"Hundreds?" Lionel was shocked.
"Hundreds. Dementors first – and every dementor destroyed is a better dementor – and then wizards. And at Hogwarts, young Ross's idea worked excellently. He didn't use werewolves; I suspect he thinks we treat them too lightly. Krait thinks some might have got away from Prince Peak; it's a hard place to pursue fugitives without getting too close to muggles. But they were defeated comprehensively at both schools. And Gerhardt does not know what to do next; and I suspect his supporters and lieutenants must be getting a little twitchy about his preoccupation with the schools. Strategically he is sound; and he knows that. But not if he can't win. And all his troops must be starting to discuss the fact that people go on missions and fail to return….."
Lionel grinned.
"And so we shan't have to kill them because they might start quietly deserting?"
"One can always hope!" said Dumbledore.
The arena was set up and the contestants waited without. Jade had prepared a broom to summon once she was inside; and so too had the German girl Anett. Anett had spent some time asking Mortimer about his family; and had been impressed by the fact that the boy had not hidden that he was of the lowest, sent to Hogwarts on the sponsorship of one of his teachers in a free school. And also that one of the teachers at the free school was the first goblin to attend Hogwarts, who was from a prosperous family who paid for all of their offspring. Konal had not always been as prosperous as he was now; but certainly to a boy of Mortimer's background he was very well heeled indeed. Mortimer spoke in the words of his mentors of racism being a matter of fear through lack of understanding fostered by partially accurate stereotypes, and that nobody had any right to declare that goblins were this or that unless they had interacted on a long term basis with enough disparate types to say that they had formed their own opinion.
Anett had been taught many things about goblins but she could see that this argument was sufficiently cogent to take it on board. She wished to prove to herself that the received wisdom she had been taught was true; but only by talking to goblins and – revolting though the concept was to her – part goblins, could she see that the wisdom of ages was indeed so.
And this she told Hedda Schrempf firmly.
Schrempf, having had a good talking to by Madam Bacsó sniffed and said that if she got herself killed with such foolishness it was her own business.
Anett agreed equably.
She did not like Schrempf; she had heard some tales about the girl from those higher up the school about the girl who had tried to kill the English duelling champion, though she and Schrempf had just missed each other at school. And as a teacher, Madam Schrempf was unpleasant, enjoying using the cruciatus curse as punishment. If 'the new order' included people of HER stamp, Anett did not want to be part of it; and felt that if Odessa did stand for a new golden age they were a trifle careless in the choosing of their ambassadors in the school. From what had been said by the English there was some generalised callousness within the system that was unwise and not in fact for the Greater Good. The ideals might be good but it did not seem that it was being well run! Such were Anett's thoughts as she prepared her broom and stacked it beside the Prince Peak girl's.
They exchanged a nod.
First to go was Miles Grant of Hellibore, the positions chosen by drawing numbers. The boy looked terrified.
He had worked hard in the library, and had come up with a strategy.
As the great purplish-grey beast thundered at him, Miles pointed his wand at the ground.
"Paluster!" he shouted, having looked up the Latin for swampy.
It was a good improvisation; and the reason for suddenly appearing quagmires around the school became immediately apparent.
Dumbledore applauded; it was an excellent way around the boy's lack of education. He had most carefully read that the Graphorn lived high in the mountains; therefore it was reasonable to assume it had no adaptation to swamp.
It was unfortunate that the boy's wand work did not live up to his imagination. The beast was slowed, noticeably; but the boy only just managed to avoid being impaled on its sharp horns even so, and took a horrible gore to one side as the beast lumbered stickily level with him.
Clutching his side, Miles stumbled past as fast as he was able to grab the box at the other end of the arena and out.
Mei Chang grabbed Ross and Mortimer by the hand and apparated to the medical area, where they were joined by Lynx, Fabian, Jem, Erwin and Seagh. The Durmstrang nurse was shaking her head over the deep wound, pumping blood. Engelbert Hellibore was ashen; he was wringing his hands.
Mei and Lynx and Seagh started chanting; and the others joined in. Mortimer was not sure what to do, having barely started learning; but he added what he could and poured power into Mei.
The wound started closing.
Hellibore stared in disbelief and awe.
And then it was closed.
"Blood replenishing potion, bitte, Mein Frau" said Lynx crisply to the nurse.
The woman meekly handed a bottle over and Lynx induced the pale faced boy to drink.
"Are you of Prince Peak all such mighty healers?" gasped Hellibore.
"Oh not in Jade's class" said Lynx "Reckon she might have pulled it off without a chanting group….this is mixed Prince Peak and Hogwarts; and we're all Hogwarts trained. Remember we got honed against Voldemort, sir; you learn awful quick if you want to carry on living!"
"Er….quite" said Hellibore.
Each of the judges awarded Miles seven points for an ingenious use of the surroundings against his graphorn; and he had managed to accrue six time points, and might have managed more had he not misjudged how quickly the beast could charge and been uninjured to retrieve the box they were required to remove.
As his young healers pointed out kindly, praising the lateral thinking.
Miles grinned weakly.
"Had heard stories from Em and Kate about the MSHG…. So I hoped it would work" he said.
If that was gall and wormwood in Hellibore's ears that he had turned to tales he had heard from his much younger sisters at Prince Peak he had enough wisdom to swallow the bitter draught in silence.
Anett Breuer was next.
She summoned her broom rapidly with the accio spell as soon as she was in and jinked madly around the charging graphorn and past it to grab the box and fly out unharmed.
She accrued twenty time points for so fast a resolution and received eight style points each from Britain and Germany and seven from France.
Next it was the French boy, Timothée Picard.
He summoned his prepared potion and cast a simultaneous bubblehead charm on himself as he sprayed the garotting gas at the graphorn.
Unfortunately, like Miles, he had underestimated both the speed and the endurance of the creature which was groggy as it gored him but not unconscious yet. Timothée screamed! However, he crawled grimly to the other end for the box and the chanting team were on hand to take over the moment he left the technical arena.
The German nurse had blood replenishing potion to hand right away this time without needing to be asked and smiled a 'bitte' to Lynx's 'danke'.
Jade was next.
Her tactics were to be the same as Anett's; but it was understood that any equipment prepared beforehand that duplicated the choice of another was not to be considered copying unless clear evidence of cheating was involved. Madam Bacsó raised the question of Jade having brought a broom too; and Lionel said laconically
"Yes, she mentioned the tactic she would probably use within minutes of us reading the riddle, as it was so easy to solve. It seems likely that Fraulein Breuer also recalled Harry Potter's use of the same against dragons. She was not within earshot of us however; so you need not feel that England will lodge a complaint that Fraulein Breuer has cheated, for I am sure Jade does not believe she has, do you, Jade?"
"Miss Breuer seems quite capable of making up her own mind without stooping to low tactics" said Jade cheerfully "I do not resent her choosing the same tactics as me, though it is going to be less interesting for the judges since I have the misfortune to follow her."
Madam Bacsó of course had not had the intent of assuring the English that Anett was not cheating but of stirring up trouble to suggest that Jade was. That this other English boy attested to the Snape girl having spoken of her intent within a few minutes of reading the clues put THAT chance out of court; for it had taken Anett several days to figure out the clue, let alone formulate a tactic!
So Jade summoned her broom – without resorting to speech – and leaped to be on it as it arrived in a piece of purely Malfoy showing off. She shot straight between the horns of the graphorn, confusing it utterly in a nice piece of timing that had applause from the crowd. It took her too on a more direct route to grab the box; and she picked up two more time points than Anett.
Murphy gave her nine points for such audacity and elegance of summoning; the French judge gave her eight, one more than he had given Anett for the style; and the German judge gave her six for using a tactic already used.
Jade flushed.
"Which of us used it first was in the luck of the draw" she said quietly "Madam Bacsó was able to clear Anett of copying my idea; she was concerned I might think so but when I was discussing it on the first day, Anett was not within earshot. Are you accusing ME of cheating?"
"If Fraulein Snape formulated the idea on the first day she had the idea first" said Anett "I suspect we both copied the great Harry Potter."
"Quite" said Jade "If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Old English maxim."
"ARE you accusing my champion of cheating?" asked Severus silkily.
The German minister shook his head hastily.
"No of course not! But it is less easy to find style marks when one sees the same thing a second time."
"Domine, so long as I am not accused of cheating, I am content" said Jade "The German markers are as fair as always, as at the duelling contest."
She smiled ironically.
She had accrued forty five points; two more than Anett even with the blatant marking down by the German judge.
And such was making Anett angry too; she was the sort of girl who wanted to win, but she wanted to win on her own merits not by cheating on the part of her countrymen. It had been this desire, to pit herself against the best, that had prompted her to ask about the abilities of goblins left behind; even if she personally doubted that they would be in her league.
Last to go was Lionel, waiting around and running through the chanting he was learning to NEWT level in his own head to keep himself calm. He had started on the syllabus in the holidays, knowing that his auror training would take up much of his time.
And then he was called.
He summoned his red cloak the moment he was in – which is to say he held out his hand and it flew to him.
The Graphorn charged.
Lionel pirouetted to one side, leading the creature after the cloak.
"OLE!" cried a voice from the crowd.
Durmstrang had a Spaniard teaching the study of Magical Beasts; who had presumably set up this contest with the aid of the French who had devised it. Lionel grinned.
He was enjoying himself now, ever the showman; and as the beast charged again he once more flipped the cloak contemptuously past him, leading it on. He strolled down towards the box at the other end, and reached it as the frustrated graphorn realised that once again it had failed to connect.
Once more a flick of the cloak; then he was strolling out to wild applause, kissing his hands to girls, and inclining his head to boys.
"What, no suit of lights?" said Jade, meeting him.
Lionel grinned.
"There is such a thing as over the top" he said.
He was engulfed in a large Spanish embrace, a torrent of Spanish in his ears and kisses firmly placed on each cheek.
As Lionel's knowledge of bullfighting came largely from what he had read in books since arriving in Germany and a little bit about the ritual sacrifice of a bull as a form of blood magic in Spanish magical ritual, taken on by muggles as a fertility ritual, he thought he had done quite well.
Señor Carcano concurred; much to the irritation of Madam Bacsó.
Her staff were not supposed to be congratulating the enemy so fulsomely!
Lionel had gained only eleven time points; but England and France both gave him nine style points, Murphy explaining that whilst it had been well done he could not award a whole ten since any Briton had to deplore the suggestion of barbaric blood sports prevalent on the continent. The German judge gave him eight; as many as he had awarded Anett so he had been at least somewhat impressed.
After the first task, then, it was the French boy who was at the bottom with twenty points overall; and Miles delighted not to be at the bottom, as he had feared he might be, having managed to accrue twenty seven points. The three clear leaders were Lionel on thirty seven, Anett on forty three and Jade on forty five.
Lionel was not displeased.
Eight points between him and Jade was not bad; he had every chance of making that up in a second task, and maybe even in a maze.
The second task was set by Prince Peak; and that would be tortuous, no doubt; but he and Jade would have perhaps some slight advantage in knowing Severus' mind set.
And now they might return to school to get on with lessons and what was, to most of his fellow candidates, important in life; and any who struggled to keep up need not come another time if they did not wish to.
It was likely that Achille Crouch-Villeneuve would not be likely to. As champion he would strut and enjoy himself; but supporting the ambitions and exploits of others was not in Achille's psyche.
Besides he had managed to run foul of Lynx several times over the week they were in Germany and Fran Longbottom and Lionel had needed to extricate him from a succession of intricate and quite ingenious jinxes, the last of which had required half an hour of dedicated chanting on Lionel's part to undo him first from the spherical form, restore the full effect of gravity, remove the tentacles, hiccups and excess and fluorescent farting that in ball form had propelled him around randomly.
The cousins did NOT get on at all well and Achille had not the common sense to leave Lynx severely alone without making snide and often racist comments about her friendships with non humans. For his own part, Lionel would have been quite content to have left Achille to his own devices and left him in Durmstrang to be undone; but it was a matter of not showing their differences off before the foreigners, as he remembered David Fraser pointing out to him when he and Ross were not yet friends. And so he pointed out to Lynx, asking her nicely not to make her dislike for her cousin be a lever for the Germans.
Lynx apologised – to Lionel but NOT to Achille – and promised she would TRY to ignore the little tick.
"I'll try to persuade him to stay home next time" said Lionel diplomatically "It's not like he likes me enough – or even at all – to want to cheer me on. I'll persuade him he'll be happier at home."
"Do. Otherwise I can arrange a non-embarrassing solution of having him live out his life as a frog" said Lynx
"What had he done?" asked Lionel mildly.
"Oh asked me, because I was getting to know Mortimer, if I was going to make my branch of the family even more ridiculous and shamed by sullying our blood with a part goblin brat from who knew where" said Lynx. "A woodlouse might have been a more appropriate transfiguration but he's such a big windbag I thought I'd make him into a big windbag."
"I see" said Lionel. "He really is the biggest creep never to have been expelled from Hogwarts! He won't trouble you again."
And Lionel spoke firmly to Achille as soon as they were safely on the Catalina that he could choose not to come, or Lionel would ask Professor Dumbledore to forbid him on grounds of being disruptive.
"It's that girl Lynx" whined Achille.
"Whom you take every opportunity to insult" said Lionel. "As you haven't gone out of your way to do anything but irritate most of the other people in OUR team let alone the prince Peak crowd I think in the interests of harmony you should do the decent thing – though I doubt you know what decent means – and not come."
"Oh I have no desire to come where I am not wanted" sneered Achille "The popular Lionel Dell has all his own fans ready to blink at the unfairness of him staying on a year and doing down the chances of the rest of us."
"You are an ass, aren't you?" said Lionel amiably "If it hadn't been me, everyone knows it would have been Mei Chang; and next to her you're virtually a squib. If you were the last best hope of the sixth, Dumbledore would have let some fourth and fifth years come along and try their hand at confunding the goblet; because any of a dozen fourth years, let alone the fifth, have a better chance than you. You're a conceited twerp and if you had been second best I'd not have minded that; but MEI doesn't bellyache about it; SHE understands the tacit reason I was retained to do this. And if you don't well you have no business to be told for you're obviously dim as well as untalented."
Achille spent the rest of the journey home having a temperament; or as Fran Longbottom described it, a toddlerish temper tantrum.
Mei just said
"FRENCH you know."