Title: Kiss.

Author: AspergianStoryteller.

Genre: Supernatural/General.

Summary: When a dementor tried to Kiss Harry Potter, it got more than it bargained for. And Harry did not walk away unaffected. Don't own Harry Potter.

Chapter 26: Dragons, Dentention, Decision.

Hermione was waiting for him with a bag full of his own, freshly cleaned clothes. With them was his invisibility cloak.

At half past eleven that night, Harry (male once again!) snuck out to see what Hagrid had called him out so late for. The dark sky was a patchwork of cloud and clear bits. Harry could see the full moon gazing down at him. He hoped there weren't any werewolves out. Lupin had quite satisfied his curiosity about them.

Harry walked the past the huge Beauxbatons carriage, shining from within and letting out Madam Maxime's voice. He got to Hagrid's house and knocked.

'Is that you, Harry?' Hagrid opened the door and looked out.

'Yeah,' Harry slipped inside and pulled down the cloak. 'What's up?'

'I've got summat to show yeh.' Hagrid had an excited air about him. He wore a large flower in his coat and comb teeth tangled in his hair.

'What're you going to show me?' Harry was a bit worried. Did Hagrid have a new pet to show off? Had the skrewts laid eggs?

'Come on, we've gotta go into the Forest,' Hagrid opened the door and strode out into the night. 'I won't take Fang, he won't like it...'

'Hagrid, I have to be back by One...' Harry trotted after him, concealing himself again.

They stopped by the Beauxbatons carriage to pick up Madam Maxime. Stumbling after them through the Forest and listening to them talk, Harry kept checking his watch irritably. If they didn't get to whatever Hagrid wanted to show them soon, Harry was going to leave the love birds alone and head back to catch Sirius.

However, when they had walked so far that the castle and lake were out of sight, the sounds of men shouting, flashing fire and a deafening roar were just ahead...

Around the corner they went and stopped. Harry thought it was bonfires he saw, until- dragons.

Four full grown, enormous, vicious dragons, breathing fire and rearing up in their thick, wooden fenced enclosures. Fangs, scales, claws and all. One of them was silvery blue, with long horns, snarling at the seven odd humans trying to restrain it. Another had smooth, green scales. A red one with a fringe of gold spikes was shooting mushroom clouds of flame and smoke twenty feet into the air, and the most dangerous brute of them, the most lizard like, was black-scaled and the closest.

The dragons had leather straps around their necks and legs, which the wizards were pulling on. Harry stared, mesmerised, into the deadly yellow eye of the black dragon high above him. It's pupils were slit like a cats, bulging with fear or rage. It screeched horribly.

'Stay back, Hagrid!' yelled a wizard near the fence. 'I've seen this horntail shot fire out to forty feet!'

'Isn't it beautiful?' Hagrid murmured, enraptured.

'Stunning spells on the count of three!' shouted another wizard, pulling out his wand.

'Stupefy!' Several stunners shot out like fireworks and exploded again the dragons' scaly hides. In slow motion it seemed, the dragons went quiet, ceased snorting fire, and collapsed with a thud that made the trees quake. The dragon-keeps went to work restraining them properly while Hagrid and Madam Maxime moved closer. Harry followed, and noticed that the wizard who'd warned them to stay back was Charlie Weasley, Ron's older brother. He told Hagrid about how they'd put the dragons to sleep for transport, though it had failed to keep the dragons quiet and calm when they woke up.

Hagrid asked what breeds they were, sounding like a man in an extremely holy place.

'This one here's a Hungrian horntail,' Charlie told him. 'Over there is a common Welsh green, the smaller one's a Swedish short-snout, and the red one is a Chinese fireball.' He noticed Madam Maxime looking at his charges.

'I didn't know you were supposed to bring her, Hagrid,' he said. 'Won't she tell her champion?'

'I just thought she'd like to see them,' Hagrid shrugged.

'Nice,' Charlie shook his head. 'Really romantic date.' They talked briefly about how there was one dragon for each champion, thankfully it sounded as though they had to just get past them, not slay them, and about Mrs Weasley's worries. Charlie also sounded worried.

Having had enough, Harry decided to take his leave. He felt faint. Dragons. Holy cow! He was going to die! He wasn't sure if he was better knowing or not. He wouldn't get a nasty surprise now, but he didn't feel the slightest bit more confident. How the hell was he supposed to stay alive, let along complete the task?

Harry sped up to make time, and bumped into Karkaroff. He slipped away from the Durmstrang headmaster quietly, and kept walking. The only other person he saw was a Durmstrang boy, standing close to the Forest. He was pale, drinking tea and nudging a foot ball with his foot. Harry crept past and slipped into the castle. If Madam Maxime had seen the dragons, and now, so would Karkaroff, the only champion who wouldn't know was Cedric.

Finally, he got to Gryffindor and in front of the fire place. Sirius's head was sitting the dim flames, quite unharmed. He looked much cleaner and healthier than when Harry had last seen him. His hair was shorter too.

'Hey Sirius,' Harry smiled for the first time in days. 'How are you?'

'Alright. But let's talked about- Harry, are you wearing lipstick?'

XXX xxx XXX

The next morning at breakfast, Harry was feeling much better for having spilled his metaphorical guts to Sirius, but wishing they hadn't been interrupted before he could tell Harry how to get past the dragon. He'd learnt that Karkaroff had once been a Death Eater, the Death Eaters had been more active recently, a Ministry witch called Bertha Jorkins was missing- in Albania of all places, and they'd spent too long laughing about "Miss Evans". Srius had told Harry that if he tried dressing like a girl, he might be mistaken for his crazy cousin Bellatrix.

Harry was unable to stomach anything, so he waited for Hermione to finish her porridge, then dragged her outside to talk.

She was alarmed by Sirius' warning about Karkaroff, but thought the dragons took top priority.

'Let's focus on them and keeping you alive for now,' she said desperately.

Then Harry had to hurry back and fetch his things for detention with Snape. The Potions teacher was waiting for him outside the Fat Lady's portrait, and raised his eyebrow at Harry's "old clothes"- the most worn, ragged long-sleeved shirt and trousers of Dudley's he owned. The belt he used to keep his pants up could loop around his hips twice. The best fitting one he had had actually belonged to Aunt Petunia once.

'Are you ready, Potter?' Snape was wearing black as usual.

'Ready Sir.'

'I didn't see you eating anything,' Snape remarked as they walked.

'I wasn't hungry,' Harry muttered. 'I haven't been hungry much, lately.'

'Eating is still important, silly boy.' Snape handed Harry an apple. 'And sleeping. Especially when there are things to do. I won't have you complaining about your stomach later, or slacking off.'

He must be in a good mood, Harry thought.

Snape looked surprised and sceptical when Harry lead them to the Chamber entrance.

Harry checked for clearance, then slipped into the girl's bathroom. Snape shut the door behind them.

'Alright Sir,' Harry said, tugging his dragon hide gloves on and adjusting the invisible broomstick on his back. 'We have to go through a tunnel, sliding. And it's really wet and dirty down there.'

'Understood, Potter. Now get on with it.'

Harry stepped up to the tap with the little snake engraved on it.

'Open,' he hissed.

Behind him, Snape shivered. The hissing reminded him of the Dark Lord. No matter how many times he'd heard it, the tongue of serpents always creeped him out a bit. It did that to most people. Of course, there was also something very intriguing about it. Perhaps next the time Potter had detention-of course there would be a next time-the boy could put his skill to further use.

The ring of sinks moved out and revealed the gaping, dark tunnel mouth. Harry turned and saw Snape pulling his greasy black hair into a pony-tail. Then he pulled on a pair of gloves.

'Listen up, Potter,' he began. 'Since you know the way, you will go first and you will wait for me to arrive. While we are down there, I expect you to behave and not do anything stupid. Well, no more stupid than usual. A basilisk, even a dead one, is very dangerous.'

It was only Snape's lenience with him so far, and his desire to not reveal anything about his recent visits and activities down in the Chamber that made Harry hold his tongue.

He nodded, and stepped into the hole. Once at the bottom, he moved out of the way to prevent Snape from crashing into him. His teacher looked around with great interest. It made Harry very glad he had nipped down to hide the dummies after his talk with Sirius. It was worth the fatigue.

'This way, Professor,' he said, heading for the the door to the main chamber. They stopped briefly for Snape to have a look at the shed skin before moving on. The next door was already open, and they climbed through. Snape couldn't stop the gasp of shock that escaped him when he saw the colossal, fifty-foot-long snake corpse laying half in the water. Harry watched his eyes traversing the scaled body, and caught them darting between it and him, probably wondering how the hell he had not been killed by it. He wondered just how much Snape knew about what had happened in his second year.

'So,' he broke the silence. 'Are you ready to start dissecting, Sir?'

Snape's answer was to pull off his work pack and pull phials, knives, a saw... boxes and tweezers out.

He stepped up and tweaked experimentally at the hard, dark scales. A minute of tugging and twisting rewarded him with a scale. He placed it carefully into a box and gave Harry the tweezers.

'Continue pulling scales, Potter. Only scales, and stay where I can see you. Don't touch them with your bare skin.' Then he moved up to the basilisk's mouth to check out its sharp, deadly teeth.

Harry blinked, then got to work on the next scale. The box slowly filled up with scales, which were a dark green colour. They worked quietly, and certainly in the least hostile manner they'd ever shared. It was sort of peaceful. When Harry glanced at Snape occasionally, he saw that the adult had pulled on the wizarding version of a heavy-duty lab coat and a face mask. Under the coaxing of a large pair of tweezers, a tooth the size of Harry's hand span came out with a hideous squelch.

'Ew...'

Harry eventually stood back for a breather and saw what he'd done so far. Barely a chunk of scales had been removed so far. There was still loads to go. The massive snake was barely dented. Actually, now that he thought about it, it was almost, sad. It was certainly a dangerous monster, but there was admittedly something incredible about it too. Something in its long, sinewy, powerful body. Something in its hard, dry scales, in its long, sharp fangs and sensitive tongue. For a moment, Harry was a bit sad he'd had to end the life of the creature.

Hearing another squelch, a bigger one this time, Harry looked over at Snape just in time to see him pull out a tooth as long as his arm. This had to be the weirdest dental operation ever undertaken, he thought. He couldn't help saying,

'Careful Sir. Those teeth are poisonous.'

Snape placed the bloody fang carefully on the ground told Harry that he was perfectly aware of that, thank you very much, while he gave his arms a rest.

'I know, I know,' Harry said. 'Otherwise you wouldn't be decked out like a mad scientist. Or a mad dentist. I was just remembering about the poison. We don't have Fawkes with us so if you got poisoned you'd die.'

Snape gave Harry an odd look, and asked if he had injured his arm. Harry realised he had been rubbing it. It was his right arm, the spot where, less than two years ago, a fang like the ones being collected now had pierced him almost to the bone, injecting him with searing, burning venom. Fawke's healing tears had neutralised the venom and repaired the torn flesh, but there remained a faint, white, slightly puckered scar.

'Just remembering, Sir.'

He returned to plucking scales again, and after a while, began humming. And if Snape heard the odd hiss accompanying it, he chose not to comment.

XXX xxx XXX

The next morning, Harry delayed Cedric on his way to class by splitting his book bag open. When the Hufflepuff stopped to fix it and gather his books again, Harry approached and told him they would be facing dragons. Getting past them rather than slaying them, but staying alive was the most important thing of course. There was one dragon for each of them, and Fleur and Victor were aware.

'Oh Merlin,' Cedric looked panicked. Harry totally knew the feeling. 'You sure?'

'Dead sure. I saw them. They're fucking huge, spiked and they breath fire. Treat them with more caution than you would the blast-ended skrewts.' Harry didn't want to overly alarm Cedric, but he had to know.

'Why, why are you telling me this?' Cedric asked. His gray eyes looked bewildered and a bit suspicious. He held his repaired bag over his shoulder again.

He wouldn't be asking that if he'd gotten an eyeful of the monsters.

'Well, it's only fair, isn't it?' Harry said. 'Since we all know now, it's even. Well, almost.' As even as they could get with one of the champions being under-age.

'Anyway, aren't Hufflepuffs supposed to be fair and stuff? I'm not a Hufflepuff, but still.'

Moody clunked up behind them and sent Cedric off to class. He told Harry to come to his office. On the way, Harry wondered if Moody would demand to know how he knew about the dragons. Would he tell on Hagrid? Would he turn Harry into a ferret?

So it was unexpected when Moody told him he'd just done a very decent thing. He sat down and had a look at the latest decorations of this office. When Professor Lockhart was Defense teacher, the room had been full of paintings of Lockhart himself, all beaming, winking and showing off. When Lupin had lived it, it often had an interesting new Dark creature for study.

Now, it was full of odd gadgets that Moody had probably used an an auror. On his desk was a large, cracked glass, spinning top. A sneakoscope, Harry recognised. He owned a smaller one. What looked like a gold, squiggly television aerial sat on a small table in a corner. It hummed. There hung a mirror on the opposite wall, reflecting shadowy, distant figures.

Moody explained the purpose of his Dark detectors: the aerial was a secrecy sensor, useless around the many students lying about their homework. The sneakoscope was disabled for that reason. The mirror was a foe glass, meant to reveal his enemies. There was also a trunk with seven keyholes.

Moody then informed Harry that cheating was a traditional part of the Triwizard Tournament. Always had been. Fleur and Victor would know about the dragons. Their school heads would tell them everything they could to win. They'd love to beat Dumbledore and prove him only human. He also advised Harry to play to his strengths. Well, Harry's strength was Quidditch. Flying. He couldn't bring his broom out to the task. He could only bring his wand. His clothes too, of course. Surely they didn't expect him to face a dragon naked...

But anyway, to get his broom to him, he needed a spell. And for that he needed...

'Hermione,' Harry whispered when he got to Herbiology ten minutes later. 'I need your help. I need to be able to do a summoning charm by tomorrow.'

XXX xxx XXX

They skipped lunch to practise in a free classroom. Then they had class- Hermione refused to skip Arithmancy- then they had a wick dinner and snuck out invisible to practise again. After Midnight, they returned to the Gryffindor Common Room to practise some more. Peeves had invaded their classroom and was making a racket. By two o clock in the morning, Harry finally had the hang of summoning.

'Accio dictionary!' It flew from Hermione's hand to his.

'You've got it now,' Hermione sounded tired but delighted.

'I hope it works tomorrow though,' Harry worried. 'I'm going to be a lot further away...'

'I'm sure it'll work if you concentrate really hard, Harry.' Hermione yawned. 'Let's go to bed now. You're really going to need the sleep.'

XXX xxx XXX

Ron was up early on Tuesday morning. Much earlier than usual. How could he sleep? The first task was today. He and Charlie had talked recently, and while his second oldest brother hadn't said what the task would be, he had sounded very serious. He wondered what Charlie had to with the task, but considering his line of work...

Ron was worried about Harry, even though he was upset with him for entering without him. Why hadn't he taken him along? Didn't he think Ron was strong enough? Not smart enough? Why didn't Harry have more faith in him? Argh, it was messed up. Ron missed his best friends.

To pass the time, he was having a read through the Dark spells he'd been practising. He wasn't quite sure why he was still doing them. It was just that, something made him want to keep trying them out, keep going. If only to satisfy his curiosity. Not that he was actually doing the spells in the Gryffindor Common Room! Just reading the notes and making the wand movements. Impulit umbra down did something with gravity, according to Mad-Eye-Moody.

Footsteps suddenly sounded from near the top of the stairs. Soft, stumbling steps. Ron shut his notebook quickly and looked up. He saw Harry, apparently sleepwalking. Anger flared in Ron's chest unexpectedly. It made his heart thump and his face heat up. He didn't know where it came from so suddenly.

Still asleep, Harry clumsily clambered onto the stone railing at the top of the boy's stairs. He perched there unsteadily.

Ron found his arm unconsciously making the movements for impulit umbra down. An anti-clockwise spiral, winding tighter and tighter until your wand pushed the gravity magic out and down. He imagined unleashing that Dark power at his idiot friend; in his mind he saw Harry's body jerk and be pulled down, slamming into the floor with a satisfying smack.

Harry wobbled on his perch. And slowly, still asleep, tipped over the edge...

And Ron's wand was moving, and he incanting the spell,

'Windgardium leviosa!'

It was unsteady, but Harry's fall slowed and he landed lightly on the carpet-covered stone.

It didn't matter that he was angry and upset; Ron wasn't going to near-kill one of his best mates. He could save that particular curse for an enemy, or an inanimate object.

The fairly gentle impact woke Harry from his dream of flying. He opened bleary eyes and saw a familiar figure exiting the Fat lady's portrait. But it was still quite early, and he was tired. He'd think about later.

XXX xxx XXX

I'm sorry if there's not enough dementor related stuff. I am trying to include that more. But remember, a lot of events do stem from it, more than you think. For example, Harry's trips to St. Mungo's started and continue because of the Kiss. Oh, and we will be seeing dementors again soon enough...