Chapter 38: Training Champions

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That day after classes, the champions showed up in the 'house' one by one. First came Cedric, then came Fleur, and then came Viktor. Fleur and Viktor were accompanied by their headmasters.

"Sorry," said Xander, holding out his hand to halt their progress. "You two are going to have to go. This is for the Champions only."

"Vat do you mean ve are 'ere to accompany our champions," said Karkaroff, taking a step forward as if to enter the door without permission.

"This is for champions only," repeated Xander, putting his hand on the other man's chest to stop him from moving any further. He wasn't one to back down from anybody and he wasn't going to let this man in his 'house'.

"So, you 're sayin' we cannot learn ze magic?" inquired Madame Maxime, looking down at him from her substantial height. Even though she was very much taller than him, she did not frighten him in any way.

"That's exactly what I'm saying," said Xander, glancing up at her with a placid look. He was not trying to intimidate her at all. He was just trying to get across that she was not welcome to learn the magic he was going to teach her student.

"'ow do you know vhat ve don't vant our champions to learn?" asked Karkaroff, moving away from Xander's hand.

"Well, if you don't want to get your champions ahead of the game, then that's not my problem," stated the yellow-eyed man with the casual shrug of his shoulders. It was no sweat off his chest whether they wanted to learn or not, he was just offering.

"Oh, come on Xander, you know you don't want to do that to them," said Harry, though he stayed well back from the two headmasters. He still wasn't quite up to being around strange adults. Though he was getting a lot better. But Karkaroff just set off his weirdo meter. There was something dark about that man.

This whole time they were standing in the hallway. Xander had not allowed them in his 'house'. He didn't allow anybody in his 'house' that he didn't know very well. Well, that's not true. But he didn't allow anybody in his 'house' that he didn't like, and he did not like Karkaroff. He would have allowed Madam Maxime, but she wouldn't fit. Not even Hagrid had been to the 'house', due to his enormous size.

"Viktor, Fleur, you are both of age. If you want to come in and learn magic, that is entirely up to you," he said to the two champions, letting them know that they had the choice.

"I don't know about you two, but I'm gonna learn this magic," said Cedric already heading for the door. "It's not been confirmed, but there's been rumor going around that this is family magic and that it's very powerful," he added, waiting to be invited in.

Xander opened the door in a Sunnydale welcome and after a few awkward moments, Cedric walked in. Xander closed the door again. His eyebrow went up to the other two champions and wondered what they were going to do. Harry had already gone inside with Cedric. He didn't like uncomfortable situations.

Fleur turned and rapidly spoke in French to her headmistress. They had a heated discussion for all of two minutes. Then Fleur turned to Xander and said, "I will be 'appy to learn your magic."

Xander opened the door again and again didn't say anything. She hesitated a moment and then walked in and followed Cedric and Harry inside. He could hear her gasp as she took in her surroundings.

Viktor didn't even look at Karkaroff. He just followed right behind her.

Xander looked at the two headmasters and said, "Don't worry, I'm not going to teach them anything nefarious. It's just going to be a couple of spells that's going to give them a boost."

"See that you do not," said Madam Maxime, turning and lumbering away as quickly as her large form would let her. She did have a grace that belied her largeness, but she still lumbered.

"If you harm my student…" said Karkaroff, trying to come off as menacing and failing.

"Yeah, whatever," said Xander as he went into his 'house', dismissing the man as unthreatening.

He wandered in and saw the three older students looking around the house in amazement. None of the three purebloods had ever been into a muggle house before, and they were looking around at things that they had never seen, especially the TV which both Spike and Sal were watching.

"All right, you lot, clear out," said Xander, grabbing the remote and switching off the show. These two would sit and watch through anything if you gave them half a chance.

"But my shows," said both Spike and Sal.

"There are other TVs in the house. You can watch it there. We need this room," the wolf-eyed man said, making shooing motions to the two overgrown children. Well, that wasn't fair. They were pretty OK with everything, except when it came to their TV shows.

"Oi, bugger off. You could use any other room, you just want to get us out of here," said Spike, pointing his finger at Xander accusingly.

"You got me, now clear out," Xander said, smirking like an idiot. He just loved pushing Spike's buttons.

The two men huffed and puffed, but finally left the room because in the end it was Xander's house. Xander set the three champions to stand in front of the couch where there was the most room.

"Alright you guys," he said, lining them up. "This is what we're going to do. We're going to teach you three basic things. Well, Harry is. We're gonna teach you how to phase, wink and telepathy."

"Yes," said Cedric, pumping his hand in the air.

"What is phasing?" asked Fleur, raising her hand as if she was in class.

"It is basically what it sounds like. You phase through things," Harry said doubtfully, as if he didn't understand what she was asking.

"I do not understand the word 'phase'," said Fleur, clarifying her question.

"Here, let me demonstrate," said Harry as he put his hand through the couch.

"Mon Dieu," said Fleur in her mother language.

Bozhe moĭ, said Viktor in his mother language.

"See, I told you it was going to be great," said Cedric, bouncing in place. He knew they had some special magic. It had been going around the school since Harry's first year. There had just never been any proof because they've been keeping it quite a secret.

"You vill teach us this," asked Viktor, skepticism deep in his voice.

"Yes, I'm going to teach you this. And I'm going to teach you two other things," said Harry, nodding his head sagely.

"Vat are da other things you teach us?" asked Viktor, tilting his head to the side in wonderment.

"I'm going to teach you to talk with your mind," said Harry in his head.

Viktor lost his shite by looking all around the room for the voice and going a bit crazy in his search, and causing the other two champions to wonder what was going on. Finally, Viktor looked at Harry with wonder in his eyes and then he reached out and grabbed his hand and pumped it up and down many times.

"If you teach me dis, den you my friend forever," he said in broken English, true admiration in his tone.

"Yeah, you don't have to be my friend forever," said Harry, getting extremely shy and withdrawn again. "But… thank you."

"Before Harry teaches you anything, you guys have to sign these waivers and make a magical vow that says you're never going to teach anything we teach you to anybody, unless you get the go ahead from us first or they take a vow and they sign these waivers," said Xander, holding up a sheaf of papers.

"And vhy vould ve sign dis?" asked Viktor, he already knew he was going to sign. To learn how to speak mind to mind with something he had already always wanted to know how to do.

"Can you imagine what would happen if somebody like Voldyshorts knew what we were about to teach you?" the wolf-eyed man asked, looking at him as if he were crazy.

"Ah, I see vat you mean," said the Bulgarian, a dawning light appeared in his mind.

"Yes. We don't want anybody like that to know what we're doing," Xander said, handing out the papers. He made sure each of them had a pen, which they all marveled at in the beginning, but got over it pretty quick.

Soon enough, the three champions signed the waiver and made a magical vow that they would never teach anybody what they were about to learn.

Then Harry commenced to teaching the three Champions the three magical maneuvers. It did take the better part of a few hours for them to get phasing. They were older and therefore had to break a lot of traditional thoughts. They have been taught too many things that they could not rationalize away. Like doing magic without a wand. Unlike Neville who had only been taught that for a small amount of time, these guys have been taught that all their lives.

Still, in the end they did get phasing and were halfway to getting down winking.

They all were done with telepathy. It was rather easy actually, because it was something most of them had wanted to learn. That and they all had a firm grasp on meditation. Harry was jealous because it had taken him and Neville so long to get there and it only took these guys a matter of an hour to get it.

Three hours later, Xander came down and said, "Alright you guys, I've got something else for you to do."

"What would zis be?" asked Fleur, exhausted from a full day of school and now this.

"Don't you want to become an Animagus?" he asked with a lifted eyebrow.

"Of course," said Viktor, not even hesitating for a moment.

"Well, we've got a potion for it instead of doing it the traditional way," Xander said, holding up three vials that were green in nature.

"That would make it so much easier," said Cedric. The traditional way was so much harder, what with holding the leaf in your mouth for as long as you could until it fell off. Then taking a potion and then meditating and then having to adjust yourself one bit at a time. It was just tedious and long, and that's why very few people became an Animagus.

"We'll be doing that tomorrow," said Xander, putting the potion vials in the pocket of his shirt. "I want you to be able to get all these other maneuvers down first. I want you to be able to wink completely. Also, now that you've signed the waivers and everything and made your vows, I want you to only use these in the tasks or to get out of trouble. If anybody asks you where you learn this magic, just tell them it's family magic."

"We can do that," said Cedric, nodding enthusiastically.

"Da," said Viktor, giving a curt nod.

"Oui," said Fleur, nodding demurely.

"Get out of here and come back tomorrow. And remember, don't tell your Heads anything. Yes, that includes you too, Cedric. You've taken your vows," Xander stated, reminding them one final time that they didn't have to say anything to the head people of their school.

The three champions left to go to their assigned areas to not talk about what happened today. Though they were free to talk about that they were learning magic, they were not free to talk about what magic they were learning.

"That was a lot harder than I thought it would be," said Harry as he collapsed on the couch. It had been fun teaching the older students, but it had been very stressful as well. He was still getting used to being around strangers, and those three were very much strangers. Still, it was outside of his comfort zone, and that was something he needed to learn to get used to.

"Teaching is hard, but you get used to it after a while," said Xander, sitting next to him, putting his arm around his shoulders. "I'm very proud of you. You did good, kid."

"Thanks, Dad," Harry said, smiling up at him.

"Oi, are you lot done in there?" asked Spike as he came stomping up the stairs from the basement. He had been quiet for three hours, which was surprising since he usually was quite loud for a much shorter time than that.

"Why? What's it to you?" Xander called back.

"I wanna watch me shows," said Spike, coming into the room and flopping down into one of the chairs, going into his boneless sprawl. "You've hogged up the living room all night. Give a bloke a break."

"He's got a point," said Harry, lifting his arms and giving out huge a yawn and stretch. "We should let everybody else have the living room now. I've got homework I need to get done anyway."

"Yeah, yeah," said Xander. "Alright," he said. "You can watch your shows." He tossed the vampire the remote so he could turn on the telly and watch his shows.

The two of them went on their way and let everybody else crowd into the living room to argue over what was going to be watched on the TV. It was the nightly routine by now. Neville, Sal, and Spike got to argue over who got to watch what. Sometimes Neville even won. Today didn't look like that day.

"Xander, I don't understand. I thought you said that you weren't going to teach the champions winking," said Joyce later that night while they were sitting in the kitchen drinking some cocoa.

"Well, see, there's a trick to it. Harry's teaching them winking in a short distance. They don't know that they can wink across the world. They think they can only wink like a couple dozen feet. No more than about twenty," he explained, giving her a wink. It was something he and Harry came up with, hoping that the other champions never caught on, that they could wink completely around the world.

"Ah, sneaky. But still, I thought you said that you aren't going to teach that," the embodiment of Hogwarts said, taking a sip of her cocoa.

"That was before I found out they were going to put dragons for the first task," the yellow-eyed man stated, placing his cup, on the counter.

"I'm still upset about that," the woman said. When she had had these games at the school way back when, a thousand years ago, they were simple Olympic Games. Now they were Roman Gladiator games, and she was very upset about that.

"No more upset about it than I am," he said. He had already had words with Crouch over this, but Crouch was acting very strange lately and he didn't know what to think about the man. Not that he knew him before all this, but still. According to Moody, Crouch was even acting weirder than before.

"Even still…," she said. "What are you going to do when they figure out, they can wink further than just a couple of feet?" she asked, tilting her head with a bit of concern, causing her hair to cascade over her shoulders.

"I doubt they will. Magicals aren't very logical. You usually tell them they can't do something, and they don't figure out they can," Xander said, picking up his cup once again and taking a drink. Looking at her over the rim of his cup to see if she felt the same way he did about magicals. She knew them a lot longer than he did, after all.

"I guess you're right," she said doubtfully. She knew there were some magicals that were a lot smarter than that, but she didn't know the three that he was teaching.

"Well, either way, they've taken a vow and signed a waiver even if they figured it out. It will be OK in the end," he said, putting his cup in the sink so it can be washed by the house elves. They got touchy if you did your own dishes. He had had that argument with them before and they'd started crying and the last thing he wanted to see was house elves' cry.

"I guess you're right," she said. "I'm just being a bit paranoid," she said with a sigh, still sipping on her drink.

"I'm off to bed. It's been a long day," he said, giving her a kiss on the cheek and then heading off to bed.

Hpbtvshpbtvs

Karkaroff and Maxime continued to snub Xander. Mostly because he refused to teach them what he was teaching their champions. They felt that if he could teach the younger two, that he could teach them too. He continued to put his foot down and tell them no. It was his family magic, and he could pick and choose who to teach.

Harry was having a similar problem down at the Gryffindor table. It seems Cedric had let it be known in the Hufflepuff Dorms that he was being taught some magic by Xander. Now Ron was upset that he wasn't being taught any magic and Cedric was.

"How come he's being taught magic and I'm not?" Ron demanded, spooning some eggs into his mouth.

"That's not my call," said Harry, putting his fork down so he didn't spill anything. "It's up to Xander," he explained for the tenth time this morning. Ron had been griping since they sat down.

"Why? You're his kid. Why don't you just make him?" The redheaded demanded, like he had been all morning.

"Do you make your mum do things?" Harry said, knowing very darn good and well that the boy never said anything to his mother like that.

"Well, no, but she's my mum. He's not really your dad," Ron said for the first time that morning.

"That's a low blow, Ron," said Fred, completely affronted on Harry's behalf. He knew his brother had not tact, but damn.

"But it's true," said Ron, not seeing anything wrong with what he had just said.

"It's not true. He is my dad, and I wouldn't make him do anything. Especially, now that he's said something like that," said Harry, pointing an accusing finger at Ron.

"Yeah, Ron, how could you say something like that?" said Hermione, absolutely shocked that words like that would come out of the redhead's mouth.

"I can't believe you would say anything like that," said Neville, just as upset as everybody else seemed to be.

"How did I become the bad guy in this? He's the one not teaching me magic," asked Ron, looking around utterly bewildered that everybody was mad at him.

"You're the one who said something mean about Xander," said Lavender, disgusted at the boy not only for his words, but his manners as well.

"I can't believe you would say something like that," said Parvati.

Everybody turned their attention towards Ron because of what he said. He looked at them all with his mouth agape. "Why are you all turning on me?" he said, glaring at them. "All I said is he wasn't his real dad," he said, fully stunned that they were all turning on him.

"Yeah, why would you say something like that?" many of them said, all but shouting at him.

"Really, Ron, sometimes you have the emotional range of a teaspoon," said Hermione, shaking her head at him in disgust.

"What?" he said, still not understanding what he said wrong. He only spoke the truth.

"Just don't talk to me anymore, Ron," said Harry, pointedly looking away from the boy and not looking in his direction again.

"I don't want to talk to you anyway. You won't teach me magic," the youngest Weasley boy said, going back to his breakfast.

Harry just continued his meal and refused to say anything else to the redhead. He was calling this friendship to an end. That was completely uncalled for.

"He won't teach you magic because he can't teach you magic," said Neville, defending Harry in his place. He knew the reason why. Everybody knew the reason why. It had been explained to them back in their first year.

"I thought you understood this, ages ago," said Hermione, putting her fork down now that she was done with her eggs. "We are under vow not to teach anybody without permission from Xander."

"Even I understand that," said Seamus, shaking his head at the simple thing.

"Everybody understands that," said Lavender, also shaking her head at the stupidity of the other boy.

"They told us that back in first year," said Dean.

"Yeah, Ron, they told us this back in your first year. I don't understand why you don't get it," said Fred, trying to get everybody's attention off of his brother and on to them.

"I've even asked Xander myself," said George, going with his twin brother's flow, "and he told me no."

"If he's not going to teach us, he's definitely not going to teach you," said Fred.

"Yeah, we're lot prettier and smarter than you are," said George.

"Oh, bugger off, both of you," said Ron, grumbling into his plate.

"Oi, don't talk to us like that," said Fred.

"We'll use you for our experiments," threatened George with a wicked smile.

"You do that anyway," said Ron, shoving more eggs into his mouth.

Breakfast continued on with the Weasleys bickering at each other for the rest of the time. Everyone left them to it and continued with their own meals and conversations.

Time for classes came and everybody went about their way and after classes the champions once again went to the 'house'. And were once again taught the maneuvers. They finally got winking down, and then it was time to learn their Animagus.

Viktor was a Graphorn which was a large and greyish purple animal with a humped back, and has two very long, sharp horns, walks on large, four-thumbed feet, and has an extremely aggressive nature.

Fleur was a Veela, therefore transformed into her bird form in full. Which was a large white and black bird that threw fireballs from its mouth.

Cedric was a golden snidget which was a tiny golden bird with a very long, thin beak and glistening, jewel-like red eyes.

"Well, Joyce was right. Congratulations! You guys are magical Animagi," Xander said, quite proud of what was happening.

"What do you mean?" asked Cedric. He had just turned back to human form and was trying once again to turn into a golden snidget. He had never felt so free as when he was flying around the living room. Even flying on his broom didn't compare to that. Then again, he had to worry about Viktor and Harry trying to catch him.

"Well, she said that magic went wonky around me, and we wanted to see if it went wonky around Harry too. So, we had him brew the potion, and here we are. We have magical Animagi," the wolf-eyed man said, clapping Harry on the shoulder. He was so very proud of the young man.

"This is great," said Harry. He couldn't be happier with the results.

"Joyce is going to be so proud," said Xander. He couldn't wait to tell the embodiment of Hogwarts what was going on.