Author Note:
An alternative take on the First Task of the Tri-wizard tournament. You know they had to have Wizard Wireless Network reporters there.
DennisUD: Indeed. It might be expanded later.
OfficerdonNZ: I know. It came to me when I was talking to some friends about what we would do if something like that happened. Could be interesting.
Timekeeper: Thanks. Its in the notebook.
Snarglbarg: Could be. I dunno either.
N0wa5t3r: Until and unless I expand it sure. I had the idea and left it like that as it could be expanded or if I never get around to it the readers can come up with their own twists. And yeah picking up in media res requires some effort to give how you got there. I know. I heard the song Lightning crashes when I wrote the words Luna Fell...
#Hello Sports fanatics this is Graham Dashwood here for the Wizarding Wireless Network. Our sports coverage today is the Tri-Wizard tournament at Hogwarts School in Scotland. The area we are in has been warded and charmed to be protected from anything short of a direct physical attack. We are now waiting for the first champion to take the field. Remember folks they are not aware of what sort of task they are going to be participating in but we can tell you its going to be a big one. The handlers have brought in all the way from the Dragon reserves of Romania a special treat. Four nesting mothers, one per champion. They will be guarding a magically protected golden egg. This egg is no treat though as it will not be easy to acquire. It is spelled not to come unless actually touched by a human hand.
OK the first champion has taken the field. Cedric Diggory from Hogwarts. He's bowing to the crowds and turning. Wearing what appears to be some sort of black ceramic and aramid based armored suit with a long black cape. He seems to be reaching into a belt pouch and pulling out a cosmetic compact. No its a burn proof cream that he's applying to his exposed flesh. Very smart idea as the Swedish short snout he is facing has one of the widest area effect breath weapons of all the dragons. I have to say that flame retardant creme is rather interesting. Here in this fine Scottish sunlight of November it almost looks like he applied glitter hes so sparkly. Lets hope that doesn't attract the dragon. And hes off. Moving carefully from rock to rock he's achieved a hiding place only 30 yards from the nest. The dragon is moving slowly side to side trying to see our champion. The Swedish short snout hunts by vision not smell which is why they do their hypnotic side to side weave.
Okay Cedric has transfigured several rocks into sheep. There they go trying to draw the dragon off the nest...and its worked she is going after the free lunch. Cedric is on the move. He's apparently cast a disillusionment on the cape. He looks like such a crusader there. He's got the egg and is on his way back. Only the dragon spotted him. Here she comes with the gush and WOW. Look at him burn! That cape must not have been made of appropriate flame retardant materials after all. He has crossed the finish line and the face is still pretty! That glittery sparkle cream must have done its job. Lets just hope when they cut him out of that suit the rest of him doesn't look like a Swedish meatball dropped in the fire.
The judges are waiting for a moment. Yes here come the scores. 8, 8, 6, 2. Well looks like Karkarov is a bit miffed but hey hes a dark lord buttkisser so who cares what his opinion is.
Next up is Miss Fleur Delacour from Beauxbatons School located in the Pyrenees region of France. A lovely mountainous area. And our champion has some lovely mountains of her own. She will be facing a Chinese fireball. Just a bit of trivia folks the flaming snot that the Chinese fireball gets its name from is over 800 degrees Fahrenheit. That is some pretty hot snot.
Okay and she appears to be just standing there with a breeze spell from behind her. Oh my she doesn't appear to be trying to use that famed Veela allure on the dragon does she? What self confidence, what bravery, what a stupid idea as the dragon has charged her and is biting at her. Snot is just flying everywhere. Oh it got her. There goes her clothes burnt right off. Yes the carpet does match the drapes. For now. Ouch. Well they did. Looks like Delacour has tapped out due to having her leg bitten off. The handlers are in to calm the dragon. Hopefully they can reattach that leg in time for the Yule Ball. Did you know that human flesh burns at around 150 degrees Fahrenheit? Well now Miss Delacour does. Take that bird out she is done.
She receives no score as she has not finished. Although there appeared to be a brief attempt by Karkaroff to give her a negative score but that was squashed by Madame Maxine the rather maximum headmistress of Beauxbatons squashing him.
Next on the field we have Harry Potter. Lord Potter is known as the Boy-Who-Lived due to having survived a killing curse when he was a just a toddler. So this should be no big deal as he faces a Common Welsh Green. A not overly aggressive dragon as they go but is still known for having big sharp pointy teeth and an annoying fondness for sheep and goats like many of the Welsh.*
Harry walked out into the arena. He was looking for his family and found them all clustered over by the emergency stairway with as many of their friends as they could gather. Harry waved in what was hopefully a reassuring way and saw Hermione and the others wave back. Turning towards the dragon he saw it looking at him with a very intense hunger. Harry swallowed his adams apple he felt like as he was defiantly having a panic attack of all panic attacks. A 14 year old boy going against that. What was he thinking. Then he saw Dumbledore looking at him with a smug grin. That released Harry's anger and he strode forward to the dragon. He stopped about 50 yards away which was coincidentally the blast range for the Welsh fire breath. He bowed to the creature then in parsel-tongue spoke Greetings mighty queen
The dragon looked at him with a strange look. It then sniffed and moved its head around as if trying to find the speaker. who speaks
I do. I am the human in front of you.
Two legs you hurt I. No Kill I. You Kill I."
Harry took a moment to try and work the context of that one out. He realized that the dragon thought he was one of the handlers who used overpowered pain inducers to control the dragons when they broke free.
Mighty queen. No Kill I. You no Kill I. Take strange egg I.
You take egg. Kill You I
No. No. Strange egg take I Harry was shouting as the dragon looked at the nest then him.
strange egg take you. No egg take you The dragon said sniffing her nest.
No Egg Take I. Strange Egg take I He said sidling closer his hands out to the side in what he hoped was a non-threatening gesture. As he got closer the dragon backed away and watched him without blinking. He reached out grabbed the Golden Egg and pulled it in to him. Strange egg Take I
Strange Egg you take. You go now. Away quick.
Go quick I and Harry did he ran all the way back to the finish line. The crowd which had been holding their breath suddenly released it in a great roaring shout of hurrah.
#Graham Dashwood here again folks. Oh my god. It seems like Harry Potter figured out how to talk to the creature. What a spectacular conversation. I'm not sure what he said but he just walked up to her grabbed the egg and then beat feat getting out of there. All the dragon did was complacently settle back down on her nest.
Here come the judges score. 9, 9, 9, 1. I swear it seems Karkaroff is having a very bad day. Maybe he didn't get enough prune juice on the way over.#
Harry listened to the radio commentator with one ear while watching his family begin to get as many people out of the stands as they could. Luna was having a very strident conversation with McGonnegal whose face paled as she looked out into the arena. Harry turned and saw death itself in a giant red and gold spiked monster being led onto the field by a dozen armored handlers. This was it.
#Ladies and gentlemen of the public I have to tell you in all my years commentating for the WWN sports department I have never been this close to a Hungarian Horntail. I can see the steam and heat shimmer pouring off the beast from here. Those spikes can penetrate 3 inches of hardened steel. They eat rocks and ores to digest it. Their skin is highly armored both above and below. This is going to be quite the challenge. So Lets see how Viktor Krum from Durmstrang does.
#Ok and hes off. Moving forward in a rather aggressive jinking motion hes already begun to fire off bombardas and conjunctivitis and other spells. They are definitely bouncing off the hide of the beast. Those scales are magically enhanced doesn't he know. Here comes the dragon and boy is it pissed boys and girls. OHHH MYYY GOD! With a mighty swipe of the tail Krum has been impaled. The spike appears to have entered his groin and exited somewhere in his chest. He is still alive though as hes flinging spells. There goes a bombarda off the head and Holy crap its loose. That bombarda broke the chain holding the beast down. Its free. Oh my! Run, run for your lives. Oh the humanity that is under attack right now. Its heading straight into the stands. The wards are failing. The stands are failing. People are falling. Oh my god. People are falling under the stands. Its crushing them. Its snout has entered the VIP booth in the stands. My god its eating the minister of magic. It must like the taste of fudge though as its going for seconds and the undersecretary Ms Umbridge has joined her boss. There is a group firing back at it. Oh my god. Run, run people get out of there. The half giant keeper of the grounds has leaped on the back of the dragon. He's throwing his weight onto the back of the dragon. He must be trying to physically wrestle the dragon to the ground. It seems to be ignoring him and yes there it is. There is, There is oh no. OH NO! The dragon has gone into a , it has gone into a death roll ladies and gentlemen. Crushing the man. Crushing him into the ground. Oh I'm going to be sick there is nothing left except a crushed paste. Its falling on top of him. Flaming wreckage is everywhere. Oh the humanity. #
Harry reacted when he heard the screams. He called for his broom and knew he had to help get the dragon away from the stands. The fact that he was going to be flying on a wooden broom trying to get the attention of a creature that breathed fire was not a good thought so he tried to put it out of his mind. He saw his family getting people out, the professors fighting fires and moving beams to get spectators out. The WWN broadcast booth had been abandoned and the announcer had gone remote.
His broom thwacked into his hand with a sudden sharpness. He mounted it and kicked off fast before he could get yelled at as he saw Hermione screaming at him. He pulled around in front of the dragon. Pieces of Hagrid stuck in its head spikes, Hagrid's severed head looking at him, his arm all that was left of his torso waving at him in a mockery of friendship. Viktor still being limply tossed around on its tail. This was something he was going to have nightmares about he knew. Years of therapy lay in his future. He cast a lightning bolt at the beast. It ignored him. He cast a freezing spell. It ignored him. It was feeding. There was Narcissa Malfoy and her husband. Gulped down in one bite. They had been trapped by flaming debris so was unable to escape. Their elves deciding to stay home and continue cleaning the kitchen floor when they where called because they didn't want to disobey their masters and be punished for not keeping the manor spotless.
Harry cast sonorous on him and in parsel yelled Hey Ugly. You stupid smooth skinned worm.
It stopped and turned to look at Harry Speak bad words Kill you I
Toothless worm. You no kill I. You no fear I. Toothless are you.
With a roar the Horntail turned and started running along the ground. Harry recognized that it was time to start flying. It leaped into the air with a grace and poetry that something that large and ungainly on the ground should not have. It twisted and followed Harry on his broom. Even when he was pushing his broom so fast his hair and face was plastered back. He felt the heat from its roaring fire breath. He climbed and dived and rolled. Which did not lose it. It did prevent him getting roasted though. He climbed straight up hoping to get it to run out of air. They pushed higher and higher. Harry felt the air get colder and colder. His grip was getting hard to maintain as his fingers got numb so he pulled over and flew backwards. He almost collided with the dragon but he managed to jink and swerve at the last second. He got a far too close view of the inside of its mouth just before he wandlessly cast a bombarda in it. He continued his dive. He felt it raining and turned around for a quick glance. That glance seared in his brain forever. The bombarda had blown a hole in the top of its snout so flame was shooting out its mouth, its snout and as well as boiling hot blood but it was still alive and roaring at him. Harry was going so fast he could barely hold on to the broom, straight down. He suddenly had a plan. If it didn't kill him. He pushed down faster. Breaking the sound barrier on a broom was supposed to be impossible but so was surviving a killing curse. Harry hoped that he would not make the biggest impact the magic world had seen in a long while.
He saw through squinted eyes that he was over the black lake and coming in fast. He started trying to pull out. The dragon had become so enraged it had pulled its wings in to dive faster. Not paying attention to the altitude. Harry pulled the broom over to the point the handle was cracking. He was skimming the water so hard and fast he lost his shoes. His feet where dragging through the water and he suddenly had to climb to avoid the Durmstrang ship. Unfortunately the dragon did not. The resultant collision created an explosion that vaporized dragon, ship, crew, elves, and almost Harry as he landed on the shore after tumbling and bouncing across the water like a stone skipped. Seeing the fire from the arena he remounted his broom and spluttered and jinked all over the sky only this time it was because he had lost twigs from his broom, it had a cracked handle and he was wind burnt and his clothes in tatters.