Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter
...
Harry couldn't help but chuckle at the letter he held in his hands. It was relatively cute how his sister worried about the simplest of things. Her belief in that he hadn't gotten a wand due to the fact he didn't belong to any magical school wasn't unfounded.
As her owl, Hedwig, playfully nipped at his ear Harry wrote a quick reply to ease her worries. He informed her that he indeed have a wand and was confident in his abilities going into the first task. Having any real knowledge of what would be required in said task would have been beneficial but it didn't matter. He had a plan after all and he would enact on it, regardless of whatever it was he had to face.
One thing that Harry wouldn't tell her however was a small piece of misinformation that he had spread to his sister. While the first actual conversation between the two of them had been genuinely awkward, that wasn't to say that Harry had been unaware of Iris' existence. Far from it but having informed her that he knew that she was alive would have been far more crippling to her, hence it was better to make her believe that he didn't know anywhere as much as she did.
While the Daily Prophet didn't have as much of a widespread reader base in Europe, the major headlines did make it through the social circles. When Iris had arrived in Diagon Alley after the better part of a decade of isolation, the word had spread well across the channel and Harry had received the news with happiness in his heart. That didn't correlate to him acting on such feelings however.
Harry knew that he was in hiding. The very hour he had been informed to hide his identity he knew why he was doing so, it had been driven into his very being. He and Iris had deliberately been sent down very different paths to give themselves multiple chances to take down Voldemort. Or at least that was what he believed. If he had been driven away from his sister for another reason then he didn't know who would do such a thing.
One thing that did irk Harry was how somebody knew he existed in the first place. He was told to keep his identity hidden throughout his childhood and only entrusted his name to a select few individuals yet somehow his name had come out of this Goblet of Fire artifact. The only way it could have come out was because someone had put it in in the first place. Somebody who knew he was alive had acted to bring him back into the public eye and there was no going back now.
The cry of Hedwig brought Harry back to reality, realizing that he had spent several minutes in contemplative thought. "Fine, fine," he said as he handed the parchment with his reply to the owl who took off into the sky moments afterwards. Harry found himself gazing at the fleeting form of Hedwig for a handful of seconds before focusing on the scene in front of him. What had previously been a wonderful piece of land, thriving with wildlife was now little more than a shell of it's previous self. Desolation and destruction had rained down upon it, scarring the very Earth. Giant trees had been uprooted and tossed aside as if they were nothing. Boulders had been reduced to little more than pebbles. Even the wind had ceased to blow as if in fear of finding itself the next target of Harry's wand.
A light sigh escaped Harry's lips as he walked over to his motorcycle, scooping up his helmet along the way and placing it over his head. He needed to locate a new training ground. There was nothing left of this one.
...
"You are Iris Potter, yes?" asked Viktor Krum, having stepped in front of the teenager on her way to class.
It took Iris several seconds to respond, having temporarily lost the ability to communicate. "Yes, how can I help?" asked Iris as she heard the whispers grow from everybody watching. She could only imagine what they were saying.
"I wish to speak with you in private, do you have time?" said Viktor, seemingly oblivious to how his words caused those around them to increase their rate of chatter. Iris no longer needed to imagine what they were talking about. She had been the center of a number of whispers and rumors before, this was nothing new to her.
"Over here," said Iris as she gestured for Viktor to follow her away from prying eyes. It didn't take long before the two of them were out of sight and Iris turned to face Viktor. "So..." she started before being unable to follow up with anything.
Thankfully Viktor didn't notice the awkward pause, or at least didn't make mention of it. "I wish for you to send a message to your brother, I have news of the first task that he will find helpful," explained Viktor.
Iris blinked a couple of times as she came to grips with Viktor's sentence. "I thought that the champions weren't meant to know anything about the tasks," said Iris. Viktor merely shrugged in response, choosing not to tell how he had gotten the information. "Okay then, what should I tell Harry?"
"First task contains dragons."
There was several seconds pause before Iris rubbed at her ears. "It might have been the accent, because I thought I heard you say dragons."
"Ya, I did."
"I see," said Iris before clenching her eyes shut and closed her hands into fists. She had known that the tasks would have been challenging for the competitors but dragons seemed like such an extreme thing to go against. The older students would have some idea of what to do in such a situation but what could Harry do against such a creature, especially without any prior knowledge! "Thank you for telling me this."
"You are most welcome," said Viktor with a light nod of the head. "You take care of yourself now."
With that, Viktor stepped away and left Iris by her lonesome, the teenage girl looking at the back of the international Quidditch star. The way he spoke with such confidence in his words, completely sure of himself. That was somebody who was used to the spotlight and knew what to expect from every situation. If someone came up to her and asked for an interview she had no doubt that she would freeze in the situation and make a fool of herself.
Shaking her head of her thoughts, Iris considered how best to go about letting Harry know of the task ahead. While he had responded to the letters she had sent to him, he had only answered what she asked and didn't seem to ask her anything in return. Iris had related this back to her earlier suspicion of how Harry just didn't know how to properly act around people his own age. He hadn't really spent much time with anybody to form any sort of friendship with anybody of his own age outside of Fleur and even then he hadn't spent a great deal of time with her over the past couple of years by the sound of things.
Considering the weekend coming up allowed her to go to Hogsmeade, it gave her the opportunity to meet with Harry face to face and give him the information that she'd been told. It also gave her some time to construct some theories on how Harry could best tackle the challenge ahead. Even if he'd come up with some ideas on his own, there was no reason why she couldn't offer some suggestions.
Sudden realization crashed down on Iris as she remembered that she had been on her way to class. Taking off in a sprint, she hoped that Professor Flitwick would be merciful on her and not punish her too harshly for having been talked to by the Drumstrang champion.
...
Hermione Granger was an inquisitive witch by nature. As soon as she had been delivered her invitation to study at Hogwarts she had soaked up every bit of information she could to best prepare herself. Even when walking down Diagon Alley for the first time, she had taken the effort to watch the people interact with one another. This was a new world after all and she had to know every possible aspect of it that she could.
As a result of all this people watching, Hermione was capable of learning quite a lot about people just by watching them. Hence, when she sat in the library watching Iris study through a book that had nothing to do with what they were meant to be studying, she knew that something wasn't quite right. It wasn't that Iris wasn't an intellectual person, it was just that she didn't study anything that would be used outside of the curriculum. Which begged the question as to what she was studying now?
Thankfully, Iris wasn't the hardest person to get information from.
"So Iris, what are you studying there?" asked Hermione straight out, not bothering to hide her curiosity in the slightest.
"Nothing," replied Iris, immediately going on the defensive. A straight out sign that Iris was looking up something she shouldn't be. Hermione knew that this would lead swiftly into a deflection of some sort. "What are you looking up?"
Hermione couldn't help the knowing smirk that spread across her face. "Nothing as interesting as what you're looking up. I know you're not working on any assignments right now, we finished our Herbology parchment last night and Transfiguration the night before."
"Well I feel like studying something different, something that I don't have to write an essay on," said Iris as she flicked a page over. Unlike the previous page however that had been all words, one of the pages she had turned to had a picture on it and Hermione's eyes went wide as she saw exactly what it was.
"Dragons!" Hermione exclaimed in a hushed whisper, not willing to shout out the word in the library. "Why on Earth would you be looking up dragons?"
Iris raised a hand up to rub at her eyes, knowing full well that there was no way of getting Hermione off of her case now. "I got some information about the first task from someone who was worried about Harry's safety," she said as she lowered her hand. "I've already sent a letter off telling him that I need to talk to him face to face this weekend down at Hogsmeade. I'm hoping that I can give him some help rather than just tell him that the first task will involve dragons."
"Well, don't you think that it'd be better if the two of us found out some information together," suggested Hermione. "The first task is fast approaching and the more we could tell Harry the better."
"Are you sure you want to help me?"
"Iris, Harry is important to you and therefore he's important to me," proclaimed Hermione. "You want to keep him safe and that's what we'll do, together."
Iris couldn't help but smile before passing one of the books in her possession over to Hermione. She knew with her best friend by her side, there was no way that they couldn't discover something worthwhile to tell Harry.
...
"Seems like such a long time since we've actually spoken face to face," said Iris, giving Harry a warm smile. His initial reply however caused her smile to wane slightly as he merely shrugged his shoulders.
"It is what it is," he said before turning his head to look at Iris' companion. "Nice to meet you Miss..."
"Hermione Granger," said the bushy haired witch as she introduced herself. For Iris' sanity, Hermione didn't immediately keep speaking in a way that she knew her friend was capable of.
"Can I get the two of you something to drink?" asked Harry.
"A couple of butterbeers will be fine," ordered Iris. "We'll find a table."
Harry merely nodded as the two teenage witches started moving towards an isolated corner of the venue. What they had to discuss wasn't really privy to the ears of the general public. It only took a couple minutes before Harry sat down opposite Iris with the aforementioned drinks in his hands, including one for himself. Both Iris and Hermione offered their thanks before the three of them took their first sip of their beverages. "So why did you want to catch up?" asked Harry.
Iris couldn't help but feel a little hurt by his words, after all they were siblings and shouldn't particularly need a reason to meet up. She swiftly reminded herself that Harry was a more reclusive person who hadn't accumulated many strong friendships and consequently didn't really 'catch up' with people. At least not without a valid reason. "We found out a bit about the first task that we wanted to share with you," said Iris.
"Okay," said Harry before taking another sip of his drink. Iris seemed to pause as if waiting for Harry to continue. Seizing the initiative, Hermione spoke up in a hushed whisper as she leant forward.
"All we really know is that it involves dragons," she said before sitting back upright.
"Fair enough," said Harry unfazed by this latest news.
"This doesn't surprise you?" questioned Iris.
"It does but I was kind of expecting something ludicrous," said Harry as he rolled his neck from side to side. "The paper regularly has an article regarding how dangerous the tournament is and how many people have died in the past. The best student was picked from each school so I figured they hadn't been killed by gnomes or pixies."
"So, we haven't really helped you in any sort of way then," said Iris in a despondent manner.
"You kind of have and kind of haven't," said Harry. "Any knowledge is good knowledge but it doesn't really change my game plan, especially without knowing any more details about what has to happen with the dragon."
"That does make sense," said Hermione. "The task only contains a dragon, that doesn't describe what has to be done in the task. It might be as simple as getting past it, I severely doubt that they would ask you to attack it head on."
"Well if it comes to that I'll deal with it then, for now there's not really much I can do to prepare otherwise," said Harry.
"You're awfully carefree about all of this Harry," said Iris, hiding her annoyance by taking a big gulp of her butterbeer. She had battled a Troll, a Basilisk and way too many Dementors and she had done so without so much as a plan in mind. Each time she had managed to come out of it unscathed utilizing some manner of luck. Here Harry was with what could prove to be pivotal information and he was treating it so casually. She was doing her best to hide her frustrations in her glass but it was showing in her eyes.
"Are you okay?" asked Harry, having noticed this small detail.
"Peachy," said Iris as she put her glass down, composing herself as best she could. Thankfully the time was given to her by Hermione who couldn't help but ask some questions herself.
Iris took this opportunity to momentarily zone out as Hermione kept Harry occupied. She had spent all that time studying dragons and going through all sorts of potential advantages which she could talk to Harry about but he wanted none of it. He was passively content with the fact that he would be going into the First Task without any assistance. She knew that he was his own person but he was facing a challenge which was meant to be incredibly difficult for older students. If he needed help all he had to do was ask.
Iris' thoughts came crashing down as her eyes spotted Fleur enter the establishment. For the briefest of moments their eyes met before the French student swiftly made her way to their table. "Excuse ze intrusion," she said as she made herself known. "If it is at all possible, may I please speak with 'Arry alone, it is very important."
"Is it about the first task?" asked Harry, looking up at the blonde haired woman.
"Oui."
"I'm all good, Iris told me what it is we'll be facing," said Harry, dismissing the topic as he finished the last of his drink. "Please take a seat Fleur."
"'Arry, are you sure you..." started Fleur as she took the vacant seat.
"Another round?" offered Harry, stepping up from the table. When he received three affirmative nods, he walked away from the table only for the three women to lean in close to one another and swiftly converse.
"You know about the dragons?" Hermione asked of the Beauxbatons champion.
"Oui, you told him?" Fleur asked of Iris.
"I did, I didn't want him to go into the task not knowing what was going on," stated Iris.
"Ze two of you have offered assistance?" asked Fleur.
"Not really but he has stated that he already has a plan, even before he learnt of what he'd be facing," explained Hermione.
"I see," said Fleur as she leant back in her chair, noticing that Harry was on his way back to the table.
"You three look suspicious," accused Harry as he took a seat, handing the drinks around. "Were you talking about me behind my back?"
"And if we were?" asked Fleur playfully.
"Nothing I can do about it," shrugged Harry. "Last thing I want to know is what women are saying about me. I get enough flirtatious mail as it is."
"Flirtatious mail?" repeated Hermione in disbelief.
"See, the good thing about being missing for years is that nobody thinks of sending you mail. The sheer amount of invitations to dinner I've ignored is ridiculous," stated Harry as he ran his fingers through his hair.
"Ignored, so you don't send them a reply?" asked Iris.
"Why should I?" responded Harry. "By this time next year I'll have left and hopefully be somewhere warmer, Spain maybe."
Iris couldn't help the look of sadness that crossed her features. Those words cut her far deeper than she wished, hearing that after the school year Harry had no intentions of sticking around. He'd be off traveling doing who knew what and she would be nothing more than an afterthought. Or at least that was how it felt.
Looking at another side of the table, Iris was able to see that she wasn't the only one saddened by Harry's words. Fleur seemed to be taking them harshly as well and Iris knew it was for a similar reason.
She knew it was somewhat selfish to want to have Harry stay and be a brother but unless something drastic changed that was not likely to happen. Maybe she and Fleur could cause a drastic change to happen however.
It was a slim chance but she would take any chance she could, even for such a selfish wish.
Those musings however would shift severely when the door to the tavern opened, a number of Hogwarts students walking in and for one of them to spot Harry. That person of course rushed over to him in sheer joy; after all, he was going to chat with Harry Potter himself. "Oi Harry Potter!" shouted Ron Weasley, loud enough for the entirety of the tavern to hear him. "Why don't you come sit with me and..."
That was all Ron had been able to say before the results of his word sprang forth. While nearly every witch and wizard had read the multiple articles in the Daily Prophet about Harry Potter, none of them had come with a picture of what the teenager looked like. As such, while Harry had spent a number of nights at the Three Broomsticks he had merely been another face amongst the crowd, a younger face but a face nonetheless. Now however there was a name attached to the face.
As such, when Ron had boldly proclaimed who he was to the people currently inside of the tavern the effect was instantaneous as they scrambled over one another to try and get closer to Harry. "Grab hold," ordered Harry as he grabbed the hands of Hermione and Fleur swho in turn swiftly completed the circle by clutching onto Iris.
There was a swift tug as the four of them were ripped from that spot only to appear outside the tavern, right next to Harry's bike. While it had only been a small distance apparition, for those who were unfamiliar with the mode of magic transport found themselves losing their balances and feeling more than a little queasy.
"Guess I ain't staying here anymore," said Harry, not wanting to deal with the situation going on inside the Three Broomsticks anymore than he had to.
"Where will you go?" asked Iris, holding herself against the wall as she tried to steady herself.
"Don't know, I'll figure something out," said Harry as he walked over to his motorbike, grabbing hold of his helmet.
"You are still more zen welcome to stay with us in our carriage," offered Fleur, doing better than the younger students but only just it seemed. "With ze first task so close it would be wise to not travel to far."
Iris tried to hide her elation at what Fleur had offered, feeling joy from the idea that Harry would be staying so close.
"I think Madam Maxine might have some stern words in regards to that," chuckled Harry.
"I'm sure there'd be room in Hogwarts and even if it's not permanent, you'd likely be able to stay until the first task is over," said Hermione in between deep breaths of air.
Iris' elation rose again. However, so to did her stomach. Unable to contain herself, Iris ran around to the back of the venue and out of sight. The sound she was making made it rather easy for the other three people to know exactly what was going on.
"Well," said Harry, doing his best to ignore what Iris was doing. "Since it'd only be for a little while I reckon I can manage but you're doing the talking for me when we get there."
"Okay," said Hermione.
"Good, now hop on," said Harry as he held his helmet in his hands before suddenly there was a second one which he offered to Hermione.
"Excuse me?" asked Hermione in shock.
"Those people in there are going to step out very quickly and I rather go now rather than try and drive through them all," stated Harry. "Fleur, I trust you to look after Iris for me."
"You have my word," said Fleur, offering a playful salute.
"Now, are you coming or am I finding somewhere else to stay?" asked Harry, his eyes locked onto Hermione. With no real choice in the matter, Hermione took the offered helmet and carefully put it over her head. Harry did the same before stepping onto his motorcycle with Hermione doing the same right behind him. "Now hold on tight."
With his instruction made, Harry kicked the engine into life with an almighty roar. Before Hermione could even consider what was happening she found herself wrapping her arms around Harry's waist in fear as they took off down the road, her screams muffled by the sound of the engine. Students and adults alike had to leap out of the way as the two of them zipped through the busy streets.
Fleur meanwhile walked around the tavern to check on Iris, fully aware of how apparition felt and what it could do to somebody who was inexperienced in such methods of travel.
...
Hope you enjoyed.