Chapter 23 - trial by fire
The three of them walked out of the tent and down a corridor to an arena. It was not unlike a Roman amphitheater; this thought was pushed home rather hard when Hermione muttered under her breath "moritūrī tē salūtant". Harry didn't need to be good at Latin to know that phrase - 'We who are about to die salute you.'
The arena was circular, about 60 feet across with 12ft high walls surrounding them. The ground was solid stone, that was a blessing, and the stands were filled with students and visiting spectators, all cheering and making a lot of noise. Two weeks ago Fudge had changed the rules regarding watching the tournament. Originally only the last task would have been open to the public, but now there were 150 executive tickets available at 50 galleons each. Hermione thought it was an attempt to cover some of the extra costs that came from the alterations to the torment.
Directly in the centre was a black marble dais. There was a matching bowl on a pedestal and even from here the three of them could see it was filled with unnaturally crimson red flames. Spaced around the arena were three ten-foot-tall pillars, each made of marble that had been somehow dyed the same crimson shade as the flames. On top of each of the pillars was a chest about a foot long. Just over the dais, outside of the arena, sat the judges who were all watching them intently.
"It looks pretty simple so far." Hermione said cautiously. "Collect the chests and get out. It's that bowl of fire I'm worried about."
Almost as if it was waiting for Hermione to mention it, the fire in the bowl moved. At first Harry couldn't work out what was happening, but a few seconds later it became obvious as the flames formed themselves into the head of a giant snake. The head began to rise and was still connected to the bowl of fire by an ever-lengthening body. Eventually the snake pulled itself out of the bowl completely and could around itself on the dais. There staring down at them was a thirty foot long snake that, despite being made of crimson flames, looked surprisingly solid.
"Oh, would you look at that? The guardian protecting the relics from the inter school team, the team containing the Boy-Who-Lived himself, has taken the form of a giant snake. Will our youngest team be up to this challenge? Let's watch and find out." They could hear Bagmans commentary.
"So what's our plan?'' Fleur asked.
Harry considered for a moment before saying. "I distract the snake, you two collect the chests?" He had thought it was a good plan, but apparently both Fleur and Hermione disagreed. Strongly disagreed, their shouts of "Non!" and "No way!" overlapping.
"We should work as the team. I will focus on the coffre… uh chests. The two of you should shield the way we practised." Fleur took control. Harry preferred his plan, but Hermione seemed to have more faith in Fleur's plan and Harry was outvoted. Quickly their three minutes grace period was up and the sound of a crystal bell filled the arena and stands. At the sound of the bell, the snake shot forward coming straight for them.
It was Hermione who reacted first with a spell they had discovered she had a talent for, that they then spent a good amount of time drilling it into her as a reflex. "*Scutumterraym!" The ground in front of them erupted upwards forming a six feet tall, three feet wide, one foot thick wall that curved towards them. During their training Fleur had both Harry and Hermione focus on shielding spells. The idea was if the two of them could hold off whatever was coming after them, it would give Fleur the opportunity to finish it off. There were two spells they had focused on: 'scutumterraym', a transfiguration spell that transfigured a wall from the floor, and 'protego', a charm that created a shield of magic. Both spells had advantages and disadvantages, and they also had different skills in the casting. Hermione had taken to the 'Scutumterraym' spell easily where Harry preferred the Protego Charm.
There was an audible thunk as the snake collided with the wall. "Oh would you look at that! If that was a real snake it would have a headache right about now!" Bagmans commentary could again be heard. The snake started to come over the wall, but Fleur cast a high powered Aguamenti Charm and hit the snake with a high pressure torrent of water. The snake was knocked back off the wall, but the water flash boiled, creating an effective smoke screen.
They started moving towards the nearest pillar, closely watching the clouds of steam that were hiding the snake. The pyrotechnic serpent charged at them again but was more cautious this time. Instead of charging right in like before, this time it tried to whip Harry with its tail. However, his Seeker reflexes kicked in and he dove over the tail.
He came close enough to the tail to know that he definitely didn't want to touch it. The snake was hot enough that even though Harry was about a foot from it, it felt like standing inches from an electric heater. It was easy to see why the Aguamenti Charm had flashed to steam so quickly. He considered using the trump card he had developed after hearing the name of the task, but decided to hold off for now. So far this just seemed like the regular task, and he wanted it in case there was a murder attempt.
The problem he now faced was that after diving over the tail that had whipped at him, he was now on the other side of the snake to Fleur and Mione. The snake shot for Hermione, obviously intent on biting her, but again Hermione threw up a wall of stone protecting herself. Harry now understood what Bagman meant when he said the thing should have a headache as its head slammed into the newly created wall. "Oh, she has that wall spell down, doesn't she? It's a different tactic to shields than most people use, as it's more complicated to cast. The advantages though are that it doesn't constantly drain your magic and the shields are semi-permanent." Bagman was telling the crowd. "An impressive bit of spell work."
While Bagman was talking, the snake again tried to climb over Hermione's wall and Harry was struck with an idea that was so obvious he should have tried it from the start. He focused on the servant and yelled "Ssssstop!", the hissing of Parseltongue leaving his mouth. The snake stopped for about half a second, but just as Harry was about to congratulate himself the living fire turned to him and started to hiss.
"Burn, burn, burn. All must burn." As it said this, the snake made its way towards Harry, its body ready to strike. He had a flashback to the Chamber of Secrets and the last time he fought a giant snake. Strangely, this helped him stay calm. The fire snake was a lot smaller than the basilisk, and Harry was bigger and a much stronger wizard than he had been then. He fired off a few spells, testing the snake, before he dove to the side to avoid the strike as the snake's head shot forward trying to bite him.
Harry's preferred combat spell of fire was off the table, so he tried a severing charm, a reductor, and even a full body bind. Of those, the cutting charn was the only spell that did anything, but it was so little that he didn't think he had it in him to cast anywhere near enough to do any real damage. The snake then did something unexpected, and Harry was only able to get his shield charm up just in time as the fire snake embraced its inner dragon and spat fire at him the same way some snakes spit their venom.
When the fire cleared, Harry tried something that he had learned in second year from an older housemate to cool his pumpkin juice on a hot day. Harry overpowered the charm as much as he could and pointed his wand directly down the snake's throat. The spell created a *football-sized ball of ice in the monster's throat.
The snake writhed in pain and tried to dislodge the ice that was stuck in its throat. Harry took the opportunity to run back to Hermione and Fleur. The ice ball didn't last long, the heat of the fire melting the ice enough to allow it to be spat out just as he reached the two girls. Fleur, though, saw an opportunity and took it. "Oppugno!" The lump of ice started to repeatedly slam into the snake and bounce off. Each strike diminished the lump of ice but it gave them a few moments.
"Can either of you make ice? That was the best I could do." Harry quickly asked.
"Non, Veela are beings of fire. Any ice spells I cast are weak because of that."
Hermione didn't talk to them, instead starting to cast. Harry didn't know what spell she used, but six chunks of ice each the size of his own hit the ground in front of them. Fluer didn't hesitate and the six pieces of ice joined the one Harry made (though that one was almost gone already) in battering the fire construct.
"OK you two hold it off, I will go after the first chest." Harry didn't wait for a reply, instead taking off for the nearest crimson pillar at a run. The pillar was carved in a way that made it climbable, so using the decorative carvings like a ladder he was quickly at the top. He tried to grab the chest, but it wouldn't budge. Harry took a closer look at the top of the pillar. The chest was locked in place with a puzzle lock; there were three concentric rings that turned freely, with lines that looked like runes on top of the rings ,and there was an inscription of three repeating runes set into a stone ring around the puzzle.
The puzzle was obvious enough, though given the time limit of the task and the fact there were three chests meant there probably wasn't time for more complicated puzzles. He turned the rings so that the lines that crossed the disk formed the first rune. The whole plate sunk into the pillar about half an inch when he got the first rune, and Harry could hear a definite click under the chest. He checked quickly but the chest still didn't move so he continued with the puzzle. After some work the plate sank again with a second click, and once he worked out the pattern the third click was heard and the chest was free.
Suddenly the stands erupted in noise ,but it wasn't cheering that he had the chest. No, Harry knew what that type of cheer sounded like from all his Quidditch games, every time the ball went through one of the hoops there would be a cheer that rose from the crowd. Those cheers were uplifting and encouraged the players to keep going. This noise was different; there was fear and anger mixed into it. Something was wrong. Harry looked around trying to see, but even if Harry hadn't heard the crowd, Bagman's commentary would have done it.
"What?! That's not supposed to happen. There are more guardians emerging from the crimson flame! There are now two more snakes in the arena. THIS ISN'T PART OF THE TASK! GET THEM OUT OF THERE!" Bagmans instruction was both unnecessary and useless. The aurors that Director Bones had stationed there for the task were already trying to get into the arena, but there was some kind of barrier that was stopping them.
Harry jumped down from the pillar and rushed back to his girls, pulling the chest with him only because he hadn't had the presence of mind to let it go. Fleur and Hermione were busy conjuring as much ice as they could and sending it at the fire serpent that had come from the dais originally. Harry had an idea, probably the worst idea he had ever had - the fact that it was the second time he had this idea in a few years wasn't exactly encouraging, but it had worked last time and that snake was a lot bigger.
"I need some ice!" Harry shouted at Hermione. It wasn't polite, but they didn't exactly have time for manners, he would make it up to her later.
Hermione quickly conjured him a large lump of ice, not even stopping to question why he would need it. Harry turned his wand on it, and after some quick and dirty transfiguration he had himself a spear made of ice. He dropped the chest and grabbed the eight foot long pole that was topped with a leaf shaped blade and charged at the original snake. He stopped just as he was to enter the snake's striking range, slipped his wand back into his holster, and readied his spear before continuing on. The snake struck,, but Harry had to jump back as the angle was wrong. Again and again the snake would try to strike at him, but Harry was focused on his task and was waiting for the opportunity to end the crimson serpent.
He was right to choose a spear over a sword. Not only was it a better weapon for someone who had no training in weapons, but (and more importantly to Harry) his hands weren't inside the mouth of the serpent when he struck, so when the snake snapped its mouth closed around the spear that was now also sticking out of the back of its head Harry didn't lose an arm. His ice spear was destroyed, but it had taken the serpent with it. In seconds the serpent's body lost cohesion and the crimson flames that made it up became nothing more than a massive bonfire. Harry smiled at it in satisfied relief, he knew how to kill them now. However, his satisfaction drained away as snake number four began to form on the dais. Then he was distracted by a scream from behind him.
-ϟϟϟ-
Fleur cursed to herself as she watched Harry transfigure the block of ice into a spear and charge in. She watched with bated breath as Harry took on the massive snake. One of the other snakes tried to flank Harry, but Fleur sent the small boulders of ice careening towards it instead of the one Harry was fighting.
She started to transfigure the ice that Hermione was producing into spears as well. She intended to banish them at the Serpents instead of Harry's insane idea. She glanced at Hermione and noticed the poor girl was starting to tire. Conjuration wasn't an easy skill, and while ice wasn't one of the hardest to produce (being only an elemental conjunction), it was still a power suck and Hermione was still a fourth year student. She didn't yet have the power she would have as an adult, not that Fleur was as powerful as she was going to get eather. Still, Hermione was starting to get sluggish.
Fleur watched as Harry was able to stab the one he was fighting and the one that was trying to get behind him was held off. She was about to start looking around for the third when she heard Hermione gasp from her left. Dreading what she would see, Fleur turned to look at Hermione. The third snake was bearing down on her teammate, who had her wand up and casting the shield spell Fleur had taken the time to teach them. But she was too slow. Fleur hadn't known Hermione long, but the first generation witch had grown on her. Even with the friction between them, Hermione had never degraded her for being a Veela, and the woman's love of learning was a joy to see.
It came as no surprise to Fleur that she acted the way she did. There wasn't time to do anything else, so Fleur embraced what Harry would call her inner Gryffindor. The pain was terrible as the fangs of the snake, instead of finding Hermione's neck, found Fleur's recency interposed shoulder. Fleur did the only thing she could at this point. She screamed.
-ϟϟϟ-
Harry turned to look at his two teammates and saw another snake now had Fleur in its mouth. He decided that it was overdue for him to use the item he had developed. He reached into his robes and pulled out what looked like a glass bottle filled with water, uncorked it, shouted "water bomb!" to warn Hermione and Fleur, and threw it at the snake.
The bottle smashed, and in an instant, chaos erupted and the turned the task on its head, as a geyser erupted where the bottle broke. Actually, geyser wasn't really a good description. Geyser implied that the water would be released over time. Harry's latest creation didn't do that.
The idea was actually pretty simple. The task was called trial by fire, water beats fire, so he needed a way to create a lot of water very quickly. Harry had considered the Aguamenti Charm but even overpowered it seemed somewhat lacking compared to what Harry had imagined.
He spent a few hours going over simple ideas until he had a workable plan. Dobby had supplied the glass bottles and Harry had set to work. Etching the runes into glass was hard; too little pressure and it would take an age to etch a single rune, too much pressure and the glass would shatter. That was all easy, though, compared to needing to etch the runes on the inside of the bottle.
It was eventually done - Harry had a glass bottle that was ridiculously large inside, the bottle was unbreakable as long as the cork was in it, and lastly (thanks to the huge elemental rune away he had carved into the inside of the bottle after Dobby had popped him inside the bottle) was filled with conjured water. Now he had a bottle filled with a lake's worth of conjured water. It had taken the elemental rune array almost a week to finish filling the bottle.
Now, all the water that had been in the extra dimensional space was rushing into normal space as the extra dimensional space collapsed and pushed the water out. Not unlike a balloon filled with water that no-one tied off. However, the wall of water was much stronger than Harry had anticipated. It knocked everything in the arena flying and slammed them into the magically reinforced walls. Harry was disorientated for a few moments, but was able to work out which way was up, and after a quick swim was soon sucking down lungfuls of air. He looked around to survey the situation.
The water was now three feet over the height of the physical barrier that surrounded the arena, only the ward that was still keeping the aurors out kept the water from spilling into the stands. Fleur was having trouble swimming but Hermione was helping her, which was good as the water bomb pushed Harry away from them and he was too far away to help.
The fire snakes (both the one that had bitten Fleur and the ones that were forming on the dais) were quickly shrinking away as they were attacked from every direction by the water, but the steam coming from the the water around the snakes was enough that Harry wasn't planning on swimming though those patches of water any time in the next few minutes. If he thought the water from the snakes was bad, though, the water that was over the black marble bowl of crimson fire, was actually starting to boil away, but the crimson flames were also losing the fight with the water, albeit at a much slower rate than the snakes.
Harry was about to start swimming to Hermione and Fleur when he noticed that he had dropped his wand in the chaos, so he used his ring to summon it back to his hand before swimming over to the two girls. Hermione was bruised from slamming against the arena wall but was mostly alright. Fleur, however, was hurt. The snake had bitten right through her shoulder, and while the heat had cauterized the wound preventing bleeding and thus keeping the girl from dying, she was in a lot of pain. Yet Fleur still refused to give up, her wand was in her hand and she was casting. Harry was stunned when she conjured a raft, but managed to help Fleur onto it and the French girl agreed with her two lovely teammates that she had done enough now.
The rest of the task was relatively simple, compared to the multiple fire snakes. Hermione used a spell that Harry recognised as the first spell he had ever seen when Hagrid had used it to propel a small rowing boat across the sea on his eleventh birthday, and Harry collected the three trunks, two from the pedestals and the one he had unlocked earlier but had dropped.
The crowd were stunned. One moment there had been a group of deadly giant snakes made from fire, then a lot of the students and VIP visitors who were seated in the front two rows had jumped back at the wall of water just in front of them. Rita Skeeter was up in the press box, along with someone from the Wizarding Wireless Network who was chattering away into a...'microphone?' telling the listeners at home what was happening. Rita wasn't listening to him though, she was too busy writing as fast as she could, getting every possible detail into her notes. She absently thought that she would need to pop to the apothecary once she left Hogwarts, she was going to be up most of the night writing about the tasks and the attempt on the lives of Potter and his team if she wanted the story ready for tomorrow's front page, and then she would need an early start tomorrow for the trial of Sirius Black. She was going to need wide-awake potions and wit-sharpening potions.
-ϟϟϟ-
Finally they were out of the arena and in the medical tent. They had finished the task in twenty minutes, but it had taken the aurors another ten to bring the ward down to let them out. Luckily, conjured water only needs dispelling not vanishing, so Harry was able to dispel enough of it himself so that the ward coming down didn't result in an instant flood. Two of the aurors had transfigured the raft into a stretcher, and after Madam Pomfrey had given Fleur a pain relief potion the two law enforcement professionals carried Fleur to the medical tent.
Fleur was being worked on by Madam Pomfrey, who was walking in and out of the curtained-off cubicle as she grabbed the salves and potions that she needed, constantly muttering to herself about reckless students and more reckless and irresponsible teachers and Ministry officials. Harry and Hermione had originally had a cubicle each as well, along with instructions to apply a bruise paste to themselves, but as a number of the bruises where in awkward and hard-to-reach places, the two of them where now in Hermione's cubicle rubbing the foul-smelling ointment into sensitive parts of each other's skin.
It took almost an hour before Madam Pomfrey had come to check on them. She had snapped at Harry for not being in his own bed but had accepted that the two of them needed each other to reach their bruises. They both had the impression that the medi-witch was tired and that was the source of her short temper, so they ignored it instead.
"How is Fleur?" Hermione asked.
"Mademoiselle Delacour is recovering. She will be able to go with you to get your results soon but then she is going to be spending the next two days at least, in the hospital wing."
"Will she be ok?" Harry asked, her scream echoing in his head as he thought about her getting hurt.
"She will make a full recovery in time, though it will probably take until the end of December until she is 100%. She is lucky she is Veela," Madam Pomfrey assured them.
"Why?" Hermione's curiosity getter the better of her
"Veela have a natural Affinity for fire. Her injuries would have been most serious otherwise." She explained.
"Can we go see her?" Hermione asked. Madam Pomfrey reluctantly acquiesced, but only until they got their scores; after that Fleur would be going straight to the hospital wing. She left them for a few minutes to see if Fleur wanted visitors, then gave the two Hogwarts teens a warning not to get Fleur worked up.
The two felt a wave of sympathy as they saw the French girl they were now starting to like laying in the bed looking exhausted. But she smiled when she saw them. "Harry. Hermione." Her voice was strained from her earlier screams.
Hermione threw herself at Fleur and, carefully avoiding her wounds, hugged the girl as hard as she dared. "You took that hit for me. It was aiming for me and you saved me and you got hurt and it's my fault and I'm sorry. I'm so sorry," Hermione kept saying as tears leaked from her eyes.
Fleur, however, was having none of it. "Non Hermione! It is not your fault. The guilty one is the one who put your name in the goblet. The guilty one is the one who tampered with the task so that there was more than one snake. The guilty one is the one who added a ward so that we couldn't get out or help couldn't get in," She said, and despite how tired she obviously was, there was a fire in her voice.
"But you got hurt, you got hurt protecting me. After everything I said to you, you could have left me. It would have even gotten me out of your way to Harry." Harry was surprised to hear Hermione say that, but it just proved how insecure Hermione was feeling.
Fleur looked like she had been slapped in the face, hurt that anyone would think she was capable of such a thing, but then her eyes went wide in understanding. "Wait, do you think I am trying to take Harry away from you so I can have him for myself?"
Hermione just nodded. Harry was also confused; it seemed pretty obvious to him that that was Fleur's goal. She hadn't been pushy about it yet, but that was probably because they had been focusing on the whole not-dying part that came with their names coming out of the damned fire cup.
Fleur looked like something was suddenly very obvious to only her and she was mentally kicking herself for not getting it before. She wrapped her good arm around Hermione, pulling the younger girl to her. "Damn it, I have been stupid. I thought you knew, that you understood. Hermione, I don't want to take Harry away from you. I just want in with you. I want the both of you."
"What?" Hermione exclaimed in surprise, while Harry just stared at the French witch while trying to reboot his brain.
"You have a soul bond. I'm sure I told you that such bonds are sacred to Veela. I would never consider trying to keep you apart. But Harry and I also have a bond. That is important and sacred too." Harry and Hermione just listened, still too shocked to say anything. "And I think our magic is helping. Tell me Hermione, you have said you like girls as well right?" Hermione nodded at Fleur's question. "Did you always feel that way or did you start feeling like that in November last year?"
"I noticed I like girls as well last November, how did you know?" Hermione asked, genuinely curious.
"Because that's when I suddenly started having feelings for girls as well. I bet not long before that you and Harry touched and you both felt a tingly feeling in your skin."
"Not that I can remember." Harry answered.
"Halloween. You were still unconscious after LeStrange attacked us. I was holding your hand and I felt a tingle then." Hermione told them both.
"That was the first stage of the soul bond. But as Harry already had a bond with another girl, our magic changed us a little so that we could hold onto both bonds."
"You mean I'm being spelled to find you attractive?"
"Non! Not spelled, it's your own magic doing it to you. It's no different from when your hormones changed you to like boys. It's a natural part of yourself, just magical not biological."
"So you don't want to take Harry from me? I don't need to worry about the gorgeous French Veela running off with my Harry?" Hermione said, hope evident in her voice.
"Oh I want to run off with Harry for an evening or two, but I want to run off with you as well."
"But we can't both marry him, it's illegal! You can get into serious trouble for polygamy!" Hermione's brain started to throw up objections.
"Not in the Wizarding world. Marriage is still a matter of house law; if the head of house says OK, then you can marry as many people as you like. And as Harry is the head of the House of Potter, I don't think it will be a problem." Fleur shot down Hermione's objection.
"I…I don't know…" Hermione was struggling to come up with a response. Harry was struck dumb by the idea that that he could actually end up married to two beautiful, intelligent, and powerful witches. Of course, as soon as he thought about it being Fleur and Hermione instead of Fleur or Hermione, then the mental block he had put up between him and noticing Fleur's um… assets came tumbling down, and he was suddenly very aware of just how attractive his French suitor was. And another part of his brain, a part that was mostly made up of teenage hormones, pictured how good the two of them would look together naked in his bed.
"What do you two say, the three of us together, surely it's worth a shot?" Fleur asked, the hope in her voice was about as obvious as Dumbledore's robes.
"I... still don't know." Hermione sounded conflicted. It was easy to understand why, the relationship Fleur was proposing was very different from what Hermione had grown up expecting. But at the same time it was a tempting offer.
Harry's brain finally kicked back into gear and he answered Fleur. "Fleur, this is very different to anything Hermione and I expected. We are going to need some time to think about this. It's a lot to take in."
Fleur nodded and gave them a parting argument. "If nothing else, what do we lose by giving it a shot?"
That got Harry thinking, a relationship like that would need a lot of work and upkeep. A lot more than would be needed if it was just the normal two people.
-ϟϟϟ-
"They should be disqualified." The pink toad was at it again, this time in front of the entire school, all the visitors, and it was being broadcast over the W.W.N
"And if I may ask, why do you think this, Interim Director Umbridge? To my eye, their performance in the face of a far more dangerous task was nothing short of remarkable." Bagman asked. As much as Harry had no confidence in the ability of Bagman to organise a piss-up in a brewery, he found himself staunchly on the side of the former Quidditch player when it came to their opinion of the pink clad ball of hatred.
"'Remarkable' isn't quite the word, more like impossible. Before the task I noticed that the three of them were wearing rings. I found this a little suspicious, not that they would be wearing rings in general but that they were wearing them before the task, such items are normally removed are they not to prevent them getting damaged. So I was thinking that they were possibly an illegal enchanted item, and I was right. During the task Mr. Potter used his ring as a second spell-casting focus to perform a summoning charm." The tone of her voice was enough to say she was happy at the idea of kicking them from the tournament. "The rules of the tournament are quite clear: one wand per competitor."
Harry stepped forward. "I believe that you are mistaken. These rings are not a spell focus, they are an enchanted item. The primary ring summons its twin and whatever the twin ring is connected to, in this case our wands."
"You mean the rings being sold by Ollivander's? The same ones the Ministry is currently buying for the DMLE? Buying enchanted items for the tournament is still a breach of the rules, so you are disqualified." The vile woman ranted at them.
"We didn't buy them, Harry made them, and the tournament rules encouraged creative approaches to magic. The tournament is supposed to test a contestant as a whole witch or wizard, not just on wand skills." Hermione joined Harry in arguing with the woman.
"You expect me to believe that a 14 year old boy was able to re-create a design made by Britain's premier wand crafter? Pull the other one fuzzball!" She was shouting now.
A few of the people in the crowd were sniggering now. Umbridge must have thought they were on her side, because her expression started to get a look of smug satisfaction. Harry, though, could see that most of the sniggers were aimed at the toad, though more than a few seemed to be directed at Hermione From mostly Slytherin Students who found the term fuzzball amusing. He also saw Rita scribbling away while paying rapt attention to them. He suddenly had a flash of inspiration and shifted his voice so it would carry around easily. "Of course I can't hope to steal a design from Mr. Ollivander, but then again, the design was not created by Mr. Ollivander. I developed the rings here at Hogwarts last year. I have a deal with Mr. Ollivander so that he can sell MY rings commercially. Surely someone as high up as you in the Ministry would have been given copies of the paperwork to read if the Ministry is going to buy so many? Did you ever wonder why they were called 'Potter's Supreme Summoning Rings'?
At his last question, the few people who were sniggering now burst out laughing, Harry continued but made sure to face the WWN reporter who had a microphone pointed at Harry. "Potter's Supreme Summoning Rings are available exclusively at Ollivander's, Makers of Fine Wands. Never again worry about not being able to find your wand or having to move your furniture if it rolls under the sofa. Custom designs are available. Get yours today!" He finished his cheery advert and turned back to his team and the judges, seeing Fleur wince from giggling as the movement aggravated her shoulder and Umbridge storming off in a matter not dissimilar to a certain blond-haired Slytherin of Harry's acquaintance.
"Right!" Bagman said with forced cheer. "Now that that little bit of unpleasantness is dealt with, ladies and gentlemen, the results of the first task of the Triwizard Tournament!
"In last place we have Team Hogwarts, who faced a fire golem in the form of a quick and nimble giant cat. The champions were unable to work as a team due to some team friction and only retrieved one chest." There was a polite applause for the Hogwarts team."Next we have Team Durmstrang, who worked together to combat what appeared to be a polar bear fire golem. Despite the best efforts of the champions, as all three of them were needed to effectively contain the golem, they ran out of time while trying to collect the third chest, leaving them with two chests." The Durmstrang applause was almost identical to the first.
"In joint first place, we have Beauxbatons and the international team. The Beauxbatons champions faced a giant eagle golem but were able to smartly damage its wings and keep their distance, as the golem was much slower when on foot." The clapping for the French team was quite a bit more enthusiastic, and a few of the blue clad visitors started changing "Go Go Beauxbatons."
"The international team, while sharing first place, is given extra commendation in the task for facing off not one but three fire golems in the form of giant snakes, with more on the way. Despite facing a much tougher challenge than the other teams, the international team kept their cool and were still able to retrieve all three of their chests." The stands erupted in cheers. Apparently their performance was enough to impress the spectators - even about half of the Slytherins were openly cheering for them.
"Now each team has at least one chest, in each one there is a clue that will help you prepare for the second task. You have until February to work out your clues and plan for the task. Good luck." And with that, everyone started to break up and head back to the castle, Harry and Hermione shepherding Fleur to the hospital wing and Madam Pomfrey's care. After all, Fleur would need distractions from the pain, and they had a lot to talk about.
A/N,
Damn, do you realise how long some of the setup has been there for what Fleur revealed in this chapter? Since the first fight with LeStrange for the soul bond stuff and the prep for Buckbeak's trial for the laws on marriage. If you go back and check the chapter (35) where the two go over law books, there is a bit that most laws are house law and only very specific laws are decided by the Wizengamot. Harry and Hermione were suffering from cultural blindness.
*scutumterraym - from the Latin 'scutum terram' meaning ground shield. At least that's what Google told me.
football - by football I mean the international game called football, not the game America calls football.
Congratulations to TheOriginalDv on AO3 who was the only person to comment their guess that the tingle that Hermione felt in the hospital wing on Halloween their third year was the start of the soul bond. You earn yourself a pack of cookies
thankyou to the people who support me on pat re on Lowten special thanks to the awesome person Jack Schriner
