Laws were already in place that oppressed us...
-Sayern nar-Hazozh (History of the Treaty), translated circa 1952
The Gryffindor Task had been scheduled for right before the spring break, much to Blaise's relief. The idea behind the scheduling had been to make it easier for the champions to prepare for the final task, the challenge that would involve Hogwarts itself, but the date had the added benefits of getting this hassle over before their meeting with the goblins, mer, centaurs, veela, and dwarves. And possibly the Fae as well—he would not be surprised if the autumn-eyed knight or even one of the queens made an appearance at their meeting. His Sight hadn't told him anything about who would be in attendance, but he'd made decent predictions long before coming into that particular gift.
Hermione and Daphne were even more relieved. The girls were the champions, after all, and they had more reason to fuss over whatever the next task was, especially since the professors had remained remarkably closed-mouthed about what the champions would be facing. Not that the lack of concrete information stopped the rumor mill from churning out tales of Hagrid on Strengthening Potions or all-out melees to the death or hunting down Slytherin's Monster, which the entire school knew had fled Mark Potter's wrath at the end of the last year. Cho Chang of Ravenclaw swore that they'd be fighting dragons, while Cedric Diggory, who had fixated on the Quidditch theme of the Ravenclaw Task, wondered aloud if this would involve broomsticks and aerial battles. After all, if Dumbledore had been willing to put Quidditch into the Ravenclaw Task when Ravenclaws weren't nearly as sports-crazy as the other three Houses, it made sense that he'd do the same for Gryffindor, which vied with Slytherin as the most Quidditch-crazy.
Or, he admitted, it was equally likely that the task was only tangentially related to Gryffindor values and they should be prepared for everything.
So curiosity was high and last-minute speculation ran rampant as Blaise filed into his seat in the Quidditch stadium, where the rest of the school was gathering. "Any idea what's going on?" he asked the boy on his left.
Harry shook his head. "None. I've heard that some of the fifth and sixth years are taking bets on what the task will be as well as on who's going to win it."
"How do they calculate odds, though?" Neville wondered.
Harry shrugged. "No idea."
"Which fifth and sixth years?" Blaise asked, scanning the crowd. He bet that the Weasley twins were involved somehow.
Harry rolled his eyes. "Don't tell me you're going to gamble."
Blaise frowned at him. "Is that not allowed?" His voice was soft, almost dangerous.
Harry held up his palms in the gesture of surrender as he realized how he'd sounded. "No. Sorry. I just thought that it's not likely anyone's rumors are right and that gambling would just lose you money."
"Unless I bet that no one's rumors would be right," Blaise murmured. Ah. There's Katie Bell. Isn't she friends with the twins? Might know where they are, at the very least.
But it was too late. Dumbledore was walking to the center of the arena, tailed closely by the four Heads of House. Blaise huffed but settled himself more comfortably into his seat. "Don't suppose either of you are the betting type?"
Harry grinned wolfishly. "Not in this way."
"Gran would murder me if she found out."
"Who said Gran needs to find out?"
"She'd find a way," Neville predicted gloomily. "And if she didn't, someone else in my family will."
"They can't know everything. I mean, there's got to be lots about you they don't know."
"There is, but none of that's about gambling. Um, not gambling with money, anyways," he added, lowering his voice. "Now sh. Dumbledore's about to speak."
Indeed, the twinkly-eyed headmaster, clad in blindingly bright red and gold, had opened his mouth. Silence fell, save for students shifting in their seats as they leaned closer, eager to hear if they'd won their bets.
"Welcome, this fine spring day, to the penultimate task of the Tournament of Houses!"
The resultant cheering didn't last too long. The students wanted to know more, more, more, and then (hopefully) collect their winnings in triumph. That, and they wanted to watch the task, too. Whatever it was, it had to encompass the Gryffindor values of courage and daring, and that promised a show.
"As you know, Gryffindor House values daring, bravery, and determination so strong that some have called it sheer bloody-mindedness." Nods all around. "A true Gryffindor is willing to charge in headfirst, even if he does not know exactly what he must face." More nods and some eye rolling, particularly among the Slytherins. Harry gave Neville a teasing nudge. "Therefore, we have not told the students what they must face. They will be given five minutes to plan their strategy, but then they must fight! But what shall they fight?" The students leaned forward, ears pricking. Dumbledore chuckled. "It depends on the team. In first place, Ravenclaw, with sixty-seven points, will fight… a dementor!"
Blaise choked. Harry spluttered. Neville whimpered, "He's joking, right? Right?"
But he wasn't, for the entryway for the Ravenclaw Quidditch team opened up. Out glided a dementor: tattered robes the color of cremated remains, a hood as dark and deep, as the mouth of the grave, the faint odor of rot wafting even up to the stands. Blaise's lips drew back. He was too far for the being's abilities to affect him, too far to drown in his worst memories, and besides, there was only one.
"Didn't Dumbledore once say something about never allowing dementors on his campus?" Harry growled.
"I don't know." Neville had gone white. "Does Hermione know the Patronus Charm?"
Blaise squinted. McGonagall, at least, seemed displeased, and Sprout's normally cheery face had darkened into a scowl. Good. He couldn't see Flitwick or Slughorn's faces, but knowing them, they were less than pleased.
And indeed, Dumbledore's twinkling had gone down. "This dementor," he pronounced slowly, carefully, "is a… gift from the Ministry of Magic, which has of course taken an interest in these proceedings."
"I bet that this will get its own article in the next issue of the VV," Harry commented, a bit too casually.
"I thought you weren't a gambling man?"
Harry glared but said nothing before returning his attention to the dementor, floating a few inches above the field. Was it Blaise's imagination, or was the grass beneath its robe yellowing with death?
His heart thudded. "Hermione knows the Patronus Charm, right?"
"She's been studying it ever since Sirius Black's escape," Harry answered, telling the truth and providing an excuse to eavesdroppers in one fell swoop. "You know Hermione. She hears about Azkaban, so of course she has to learn everything about dementors. And once she learns about dementors, of course she taught herself how to defend against them. I don't blame her." He fidgeted. "But I don't think she's ever actually cast it with a dementor around."
"Of course not," Neville replied. "Where would she find a dementor?"
Harry fiddled with his wand, intention darkening his eyes. If this monster got too close to Hermione…. If an innocent life, any innocent life, were in danger…. He had power enough to fight it off, power enough to save the innocent.
Power enough to expose himself. The dementor would recognize his Patronus, recognize him as the one who had rescued Sirius Black from his unlawful imprisonment. And it would talk (or whatever it was dementors did to communicate) to Dumbledore, tell him everything.
Harry was clever, but even he would be hard-pressed to talk his way out of that situation. And when his tongue was not enough (it would not be, no, it would not stand against such cleverness), everything would crumble.
But looking at Harry's face, Blaise didn't need his Sight to realize that his friend knew this too—and that, if push came to shove, he would use his Patronus anyways.
He rested a hand on his friend's shoulder. "I'm sure that one of the professors will step in if something goes wrong."
Harry did not unstiffen, but his hand twitched away from his wand. Green eyes focused on the field.
The Ravenclaws had apparently been given their five minutes already, for they were striding into the field. Hermione walked at their head. Even from this distance, Blaise could make out the terror on her face, the slight trembling in her step—and the clenched jaw, the squared shoulders. He felt his lips curve into a smile. Good for Hermione.
The dementor turned its hood towards its prey. Was it Blaise's imagination, or did it seem to inhale deeply as though sucking in the sweat evaporating from the Ravenclaws' skin? The students slowed and shuddered. Most of them stopped. Hermione grit her teeth, the cords in her neck bulging, and drew her wand.
Blaise leaned so far forward that he nearly fell from his seat. Harry's breathing came in rapid pants.
"Expecto patronem."
Hermione's voice was clear, concise, crisp. A faint quaver threaded through it, that was true, but she sounded almost as strong as she did in the classroom, answering a question that no one else could. Blaise's heart rate slowed.
Silver mist flowed from the front of her wand. Hermione blanched; the mist faltered. Then, swallowing so hard that Blaise could see her Adam's apple bob, she took another step forward. "Expecto patronem!"
The mist coalesced into an almost-solid avian state. Sweat trickled down Hermione's brow, covering her face in a fine sheen of moisture. "Expecto patronem, expecto patronem, expecto patronem!"
The enormous silver raven charged, feathers flashing like moonbeams made flesh, eyes shining like diamond stars. It flew towards the dementor, talons extended, beak dagger-sharp. The dementor raised an arm to ward against it, but silver claws tore into its robe, revealing glimpses of the putrefying flesh beneath.
Hermione staggered, would have fallen if Luna hadn't darted in and held her up. The elder girl smiled; her Patronus seemed to gain new strength, tossing back its head before harrying the dementor, slashing at its fleeing form, driving it to the darkness whence it came.
Blaise leapt to his feet, a cheer in his throat. "Hermione! Goooo Hermione!" Beside him, Harry was doing the same, as was Neville on Harry's other side. Blaise could have wept with relief. Hermione and the other Ravenclaws were safe; Harry hadn't exposed himself and doomed them all, and….
…and Hermione had just cast a corporeal Patronus in front of hundreds of student and Dumbledore himself at age fourteen. Had it taken her a few tries? Yep. Had she managed it anyways?
Yes.
Blaise's applause slowed. He glanced at the staff box, wished he had a better view of Dumbledore's face.
Hermione lost her balance. The Patronus fizzled, dissipated into silvery mist before vanishing entirely. Its maker sagged against Luna as the other Ravenclaws (who were cheering just as wildly as anyone in the stands) belatedly realized that Hermione was exhausted and darted over to carry their now-bemused teammate on their shoulders away from the whooping crowd.
Blaise grinned again. He knew that all five of them were decently powerful, tough enough that Hermione shouldn't have keeled over for just one dementor. Dumbledore, though, didn't know that, and now he hopefully never would. That, or dementors had a bad effect on Hermione; she could be suffering a belated dementor-induced flashback. He hoped it was the former option but didn't discount the latter. He'd just have to ask when this task was finished. But whatever the reason, Hermione's collapse made it seem as though she'd come across some obscure spell in her reading (which would surprise no one) and had managed to cast it when it was desperately needed. She looked like a bookworm who performed well under pressure, nothing else.
Scores would be announced after all the teams had competed, so Dumbledore skipped straight to the next introduction: "In second place, Hufflepuff, with sixty-five points, will be battling a Hungarian Horntail."
Neville spluttered. "How is this legal?"
"How the devil should I know?" Harry demanded.
"Aren't Horntails the worst of the breeds?" Blaise asked.
"Most people would say so, yes," Harry confirmed.
"Then to quote Neville: 'How is this legal?!'"
"Beats me," Harry grumbled
"Daphne's sister is down there," Neville whispered, leaning forward.
"Not yet," Blaise corrected. "She and the other 'puffs still have three, four minutes—"
"You know what I mean, Blaise," Neville growled. "Daphne's sister has to face a full-grown Hungarian Horntail."
"Diggory's pretty competent, though," Harry tried to assure him.
Neville's brow furrowed. "Harry, Blaise, what exactly do they have to do to end the task?"
"Beat the dragon."
"Did Dumbledore ever define 'beat the beastie'?"
Harry sucked in a sharp breath. "He didn't."
The Hufflepuffs, pale-faced and trembling, filed into the stadium. The yellow-and-black section of the stands cheered, though their enthusiasm was rather subdued by the sight of the enormous, coal-black, spine-covered, leather-winged, armor-scaled, razor-clawed, mallet-tailed, fire-breathing death-beast being led in through the other side.
"Oh, Merlin," Blaise moaned.
Harry stood, darted for the exit. His face had taken on a greenish tint, but Blaise didn't think he'd run off just to be sick. The other Slytherin sprinted after him, much to the annoyance of the people whose view of the upcoming bloodshed he was blocking. He caught up to the other boy right outside the stadium. "What're you doing?"
"Keeping them alive," was the short response. Taking out his wand, he incanted the words for the Disillusionment Charm. His spell was so powerful that Blaise couldn't see anything, but a raven's harsh caw and the beating of wings against the air told him everything he needed to know.
"What's Harry doing?" Neville hissed when Blaise returned to his seat.
"Animagus, Disillusioned," Blaise muttered from the corner of his mouth. He could barely hear himself over the hollering in the stands, the dragon's roars, the Hufflepuffs' shouted spells. Louder, he added, "They're not doing so well."
It was true. Astoria was down, clutching her leg and trying very hard not to cry. Blaise glimpsed the paleness of bone and the twin reds of burn and blood. He shuddered on her behalf. But Astoria was a Greengrass, Daphne's sister through and through, and she aimed her shaking wand hand at the dragon to fire off a useless curse that ricocheted off the beast's side. It was actually a good shot; if not for the trembling in her arm, she might have hit the eyes or mouth, one of the few vulnerable points on a dragon's body.
Cedric Diggory was levitating a ball of water that shook just as badly as Astoria's arm. As two of his Housemates provided a distraction, the Hufflepuff swung his floating pool into the dragon's face. The dragon jerked its head aside; Cedric's water followed until the tail hit him across the chest. The water ball burst, leaving the dragon wet and angrier than before.
Hurry up, Harry, Blaise thought.
The dragon paused. It huffed, hissed.
To anyone else, the hiss would have sounded like annoyance or menace or rage. To Blaise and Neville, it sounded like Parseltongue. Too fast for them to make out more than a word here and there, but still Parseltongue, still music to their ears.
Harry.
The dragon snarled again before going back to hissing. And then its neck was darting out, jaws clamping around Diggory.
Dozens of students screamed. The audience leapt to their feet. Even Dumbledore was standing, wand at the ready.
Cedric Diggory cast a flaming Stunner into the dragon's mouth.
The Hufflepuff had obviously put all his remaining magic into that final, desperate blow. The dragon's eyes rolled up. The immense body sagged, collapsed, raising a cloud of dirt around them. Cedric cried out as the jaws clamped down on him.
Madame Pomfrey charged across the stadium, robes kilted to her knee, wand at the ready. A quick Levitation Charm, a Stunner for the dazed Cedric, a stretcher. The Medi-witch barked orders at the staff, who were hurrying down to the field. The Hufflepuffs sat down as their teachers approached with stretchers.
For a few minutes, everything was chaos. The Hufflepuffs had to be evacuated, the dragon taken away. The students in the stands wandered about, chattering in excitement about the fight, their emotions, and how they hoped to Merlin that Cedric would be okay. Blaise and Neville felt like the only students still in their seats.
"What next?" Neville choked. "A nundu?"
"That's definitely illegal," Blaise assured him, trying to ignore the queasy sensation in his stomach. If there was a nundu, none of the Slytherins would survive. So there couldn't be a nundu. Not even the Ministry was that stupid.
He hoped.
But no, it was only a (herd? Flock? Parliament? No, parliament was for owls.) group of seven acromantulas that the Slytherins had to fight. Blaise actually sighed in relief before he realized that oh, wait, acromantulas were bad.
But at least they weren't nundu.
Harry hadn't returned. Blaise could only assume that he was still in the field, circling above the competitors just in case someone was about to die. But he restrained himself even when one of the spiders landed on Daphne, mandibles going for her throat before being blasted off by the third year's spell.
Eventually, the exhausted, bleeding Slytherins herded the injured spiders out of the stadium. Two students and one spider lay still on the ground, blood oozing from their wounds. Madame Pomfrey didn't wait until the other spiders were gone, just charging onto the field before the door closed, making a beeline for the smaller unconscious Slytherin.
The chaos of evacuation was more controlled this time, partly because the teachers had more experience getting their children out. Blaise and Neville kept their eyes on Daphne, whose robes had been torn along the sleeve and who seemed to be poisoned, if the staggering was any indication. Then again, that might have been blood loss—her pale hair was stained crimson.
Finally, finally, the field emptied. The students were receiving medical care, the last spider had been carried off, and all was ready for the next battle.
"For the last round, Gryffindor House, with forty-six points, will fight a Cerberus!"
"What?" Blaise roared, leaping to his feet. A Cerberus? A Cerberus? A dementor for Ravenclaw, a dragon for Hufflepuff, acromantulas for his own House, and a stinking Cerberus for the Gryffindors? Mark Potter knew bloody well how to fight a Cerberus—he'd tricked his way past one in his first year, for Merlin's sake! "Can you spell 'blatant favoritism' or what?"
"That's not right," Neville muttered. He frowned, reconsidered. "Not that any of these things are right. I thought that that one spider would kill Daphne."
The spider in question nearly had, but Blaise didn't say so.
The Gryffindors, confident in their strategy, opted out of the five-minute planning session. They walked into the stadium singing the latest Celestina Warbeck hit and playing some hastily conjured drums, cymbals, and tambourines. Fluffy the Cerberus (for how many of the blasted things could there be in Great Britain?) drooped. His eyes fell to half-mast before losing the battle completely. The Gryffindors laid down their instruments, though they still sang, and lifted Mark onto Fluffy's middle head. The boy struck a pose: chest puffed out, arms upraised, a triumphant smirk on his face.
The entire 'fight' lasted less than two minutes.
The crowd went wild.
Blaise let his muscles loosen, his jaw unclench. That had been… that had not been fun. Some of the other tasks—the Ravenclaw quiz bowl had been interesting, if biased, and he'd approved of most of the modifications undertaken during the Hufflepuff Task—but this had just been a nightmare.
Proof: The judges couldn't announce their scores right away. Madame Pomfrey wouldn't let several of the students out of her sight yet. Someone behind Blaise told his neighbor that Dumbledore was negotiating with the Medi-witch for the release of her 'hostages.'
For several minutes, the students milled about, chattering about this or that monster and what they would have done as champion and just the Tournament of Houses in general.
Harry took advantage of the confusion to return. "You talked to the dragon?" Neville murmured.
"It didn't work out very well," the other boy grumbled. "You saw." He shivered. "But I snuck a peek into the med tent. Everyone seems to be doing fine, including Daphne and Hermione."
The last bit of tension drained from Blaise's shoulders. "Thank Merlin."
"I did."
Pomfrey and Dumbledore had apparently come to some form of agreement, as the Headmaster and the Heads of Houses had once again taken their place in the center of the stadium. Flitwick raised his wand to his throat. When he spoke, his annoyed, magically enhanced voice carried across the stands. "Ravenclaw fought well, but because they relied on only one person as their sword and shield, they are awarded only thirty-two points out of fifty."
"Ninety-five total," Neville mumbled.
Sprout was next. "All members of Hufflepuff House fought valiantly, but suffered grave injuries and near-death. Their team therefore receives thirty-five points out of fifty."
"An even hundred," Neville noted.
Slughorn's turn. "Slytherin battled in the same way as Hufflepuff: valiantly, but with much blood shed. Therefore we receive Hufflepuff's score of thirty-five points out of fifty."
"Ninety-nine."
"Neck and neck, isn't it?" Harry murmured.
"Except for Gryffindor. Look at McGonagall's face—they can't have scored well."
And sure enough, the stony-faced Transfiguration professor's voice was tight and clipped as she proclaimed, "Gryffindor charged in without any wand or broomstick or potion to protect them, yet they still won in record time. Therefore they have been awarded forty-six points out of fifty."
"That doubles their score," Neville exclaimed. "Ninety-two. We're in the running again."
"Thanks to blatant unfairness," Blaise pointed out.
Neville grimaced. "I know. I wonder if the next task will be as rigged as this one?"
Harry scowled. "We'll just have to wait and see."
A special thanks to Scarmagista, who kept track of the scores when I forgot that oh, yeah, I should probably keep track of those.
Next chapter: due July 12, but my family is going on a trip to meet some relatives in another country, so it might be up to a week late. I'll do my best, and it won't be any later than July 19, but I'm not quite certain what we'll be doing on this trip and how much time I'll have to write. Sorry, but... At least the next chapter should be actiony, if all goes according to plan.
See you!
-Antares