A/N:
Hello! Thank you to everyone who's been reading this fic so far.
I'm pleasantly surprised there are so many Harry/Astoria (Historia?) fans like me.
Thanks as always to BingBong, for trying to convince me to write lemon- I mean, for his help editing this chapter.
"Daffy?" Astoria said, knocking on the door to her sister's room. "I need your help."
"Hi Astoria," Daphne replied. "What's up?"
Astoria walked over to Daphne and sat on her bed. "I have a date tomorrow."
"A date!" Daphne's eyes widened in surprise. "With Harry?"
"Yeah, of course."
"Where?"
A happy little smile spread across Astoria's face. "He got tickets to the Lord Chamberlain's Wizards in Hogsmeade."
"What!? I heard they were coming to Hogsmeade, but their tickets cost at least twenty galleons per seat. How does Harry have that kind of money to throw around? Especially when he dresses like that." Daphne said, thinking about the worn down and poorly fitting clothes the boy normally wore. While she knew he came from an old magical family, she would've guessed his finances were limited based on the state of his dress.
"Hey! His clothes aren't that bad…" Astoria said unconvincingly, trying futilely to defend her friend and crush – even she admitted his 'casual' clothes left a bit to be desired. "But actually, that's what I needed your help with. I've never been on a date before, and I have no clue what to wear…"
It just so happened that Daphne had also never been on a date before, and she was pretty sure Astoria knew that. But she could hardly show weakness now, not when her sister was looking up at her so helplessly.
"What kind of look are you going for?" Daphne asked, figuring that was as good a place as any to start.
"I'm not really sure. I've always just worn whatever I liked, but now…"
"Go on," prompted Daphne at her sister's hesitation.
"I dunno, I want him to notice me." Astoria said shyly.
Yeesh! Daphne thought, trying not to blush herself at her sister's words and demeanor. I don't think I'm ready for this.
"Let me get Tracey," Daphne said after a while. "She's better with this stuff than I am."
"How are your preparations going for the first task?" Sirius asked Harry when they had settled into their usual seats in the Shrieking Shack. "Have you figured out what it is yet?"
"Not yet," Harry answered. "I've poked around, but they're keeping a pretty tight lid on any information."
"And the spells? Were my notebooks helpful?"
"Very! Thanks again for that. Hermione's still working through the item designs, and we're leaving the animagus ritual aside for the time being, but me and Ron have been practicing some of the spells in the other book."
Sirius nodded. "That's a good start Harry, but I can't stress enough how imperative it is you find out what the first task will entail before you have to compete. Remember, preparation is the backbone of every good plan."
"Yes, Sirius." Harry replied dutifully, knowing his godfather's insistence was coming from a place of concern for his safety. "I'll try my best."
"I'll make sure to be there in case things go wrong," Sirius continued, "but that would also mean revealing my presence and likely needing to flee the country after. So ideally, it won't come to that, but just know that I won't let anything happen to you." Sirius gave him a meaningful look as he spoke, and the conviction on the normally flippant man's face did make Harry feel safer.
"Thanks Sirius," Harry said honestly. "It means a lot that I won't be facing whatever death trap they have prepared for me all by myself."
Sirius cringed. "Hopefully it won't be that deadly, it is the first task after all…"
"Expect the worst, prepare for even worse than that." Harry said smugly, reciting the words Sirius had made him write down in his notebook during their previous meeting.
"Ah, so you were listening!"
"Of course."
Sirius adjusted his seating position on the couch and looked over to where his godson sat on the armchair. "Now Harry," he started, rubbing his hands together. "Did you find anyone to go to the theater with today?"
Sirius was hoping by some chance Harry had invited Astoria, but he had a sneaking suspicion he would have to do the work to get them to go together himself.
"Er, actually, yeah." Harry said, rubbing the back of his head awkwardly. "Remember the girl I mentioned a couple times, Astoria Greengrass?"
"Sure, I think I vaguely remember her." Sirius lied through his teeth as if he hadn't been planning her and his godson's courtship for the past two months.
"Well, I asked her."
"Seriously!? Did she say yes?" Sirius was astounded Harry had actually asked Astoria.
"Yep." Harry smiled.
I'm so proud of him! Sirius thought. But where did he find the courage? Anyway, that saves me a lot of running around later…
"And what are you going to wear for the date?" He asked.
"Uh, I don't think it's really a date…" Harry blushed and turned away. "I thought I'd just wear what I'm wearing now?"
Sirius looked, appalled, at the outfit Harry was currently donning. A worn out hoodie over a faded shirt, with trousers a little too big for him, rolled up at the bottom revealing a pair of dirty running shoes. Clearly his cousin's hand-me-downs.
"Harry." Sirius began patiently, in the tone one would take with a clueless infant. "You will not be going on your first ever date looking like that."
"It's not really a date-"
"You will not be wearing that." Sirius repeated. "If you do, Astoria will never speak to you again."
"Really?"
"Really."
Harry looked down at the ground. "This is all I have though." He said sheepishly.
Sirius gave him a puzzled look. "I could have guessed your miserly relatives wouldn't fork out enough money to get you dressed nicely, but I know for a fact your parents left you with plenty of galleons. Have you never gone shopping before?"
Harry shrugged. "I suppose I could have, but I've never seen the point in it. Clothes are clothes, why waste money on more of what I already have?"
Sirius sighed and shook his head. "You still have much to learn, Harry. What you're currently wearing aren't clothes, they're equipment. They keep you warm and decent, but nothing more."
"So what should I wear?" Harry asked. "I suppose I could run out and buy something right now, but I didn't bring much money with me either."
"First of all Harry, when you're going on a date, you should always bring some money just in case."
"But it's not really a d-"
"Second of all," Sirius said, cutting off Harry's interjection. "Don't worry. I happen to have a wardrobe of newly purchased clothes that would fit someone your size right here."
Sirius pulled a miniature cupboard out of his pocket, and after placing it on the ground by the couch, cast a spell with his wand that brought it back to full size.
"And why exactly, were you walking around with a wardrobe full of clothes my size in your pocket?"
"Preparation! It's the backbone of every good plan."
Harry rolled his eyes. "I don't have much of an eye for fashion, I don't suppose you had an outfit in mind?"
Sirius grinned. "Why yes! It just so happened I did have one."
Harry watched as Sirius pulled a leather jacket, a chain, and sunglasses out of the wardrobe. "Why don't you try these?"
Harry waited for Astoria at the gates where the road from Hogwarts led into Hogsmeade Village. After rejecting countless outfits that Sirius had called 'badass' but Harry found a little too over the top, they had settled on a clean black sweater, a pair of new jeans and black converse. Sirius had insisted Harry wear a white t-shirt underneath the sweater, to peek above the collar just a bit, but Harry adamantly refused the chain his godfather tried to get him to add to the ensemble.
Harry had to admit the new look was making him feel slightly more confident, but that confidence didn't go very far to counteract the immense nervousness he felt while waiting for Astoria.
Is it a date? Harry asked himself for what must have been the hundredth time since they had made the plans just a couple of days earlier.
Astoria said it was a date, but she's always teasing me, so maybe she was just joking around again?
Harry was broken out of his ruminations as a group of carriages came down the path from Hogwarts and stopped just outside the village gates. As the students filtered out of the carriages and through the gates, a small crowd pushed past him, some of them bumping into him on purpose.
"Watch where you're going, Potter!" A large older boy said as he walked by, forgoing subtlety and slamming his shoulder into Harry's rather aggressively.
"Sure." Harry said, stumbling back a step from the impact.
When asked about it later, Harry confessed that he didn't even remember the incident, so focused was he on the girl standing just outside the gates.
She's so cute! Harry exclaimed to himself, utterly enchanted by the sight of Astoria Greengrass, her shoulder-length blonde hair shifting slightly in the mild breeze.
While Harry freely admitted he found Astoria attractive, and the few times he had met her in Hogsmeade she was stylishly dressed, there was something different about her today. She was wearing fashionable cargos and a white t-shirt, with an open jacket over top. It took him a good few seconds to draw his eyes away from the inch or two of skin he could see between the top of her trousers and her slightly cropped shirt, and he tried his very best to keep the blush off his face. He could tell her pretty features were accented with just a bit of makeup, but Harry didn't have the first clue what specifically it might have been.
As he looked at her, Harry wasn't sure what to say. Or more accurately, Harry had many things he could have thought to say, but at the moment, his words were failing him. So he just stood there.
Astoria, for her part, wasn't doing too much better.
He's so handsome! She screamed in her head, trying to burn the image of him standing there by the gates into her mind.
While she had never found him hard on the eyes, Astoria had never quite noticed Harry like this before. Most of what she liked about him was his kindness, his quiet strength, and the sensitivity she could see in him that most other boys his age lacked – and that had been enough to inform her crush on him. but as she looked at him now, dressed way nicer than she'd ever seen him before, and knowing that he had dressed that way for her, something different awakened inside of her.
Harry startled as a girl started laughing from beside Astoria, who in his distraction he hadn't even noticed was there.
"I told you he'd like it!" Tracey said to Daphne with a smug expression on her face.
"Oh I knew he'd like it," Daphne replied. "I just think it's…too much, for someone her age."
Daphne hadn't been a fan of the outfit Tracey had chosen for Astoria, on account of it being too 'exciting'; Tracey laughed and called her a prude, but Astoria clearly wanted Daphne's approval before wearing it to Hogsmeade on her first date. Eventually, Daphne came to terms with the fact that the outfit really wasn't so bad, and she was just having a hard time letting go of the 'little kid' Tori from her childhood and embracing the young woman she was becoming.
"Potter doesn't clean up so bad himself, eh?" Tracey asked.
"I suppose not." Daphne admitted with a scowl. "I just don't like the way he's looking at my sister. It's…lascivious."
Tracey chuckled. "Don't look now, but your sister's wearing a pretty similar expression herself."
"I know." Daphne sighed. "Come Tracey, let's leave. I'll need more than a few butterbeers to cope with my little sister's loss of innocence."
As the two girls walked by Harry, Tracey put a hand on his shoulder.
"Bring her back by five, y'hear?" She said in her best impression of a stern father's voice.
"O-of course!" Harry replied, who was still too focused on Astoria to have paid much attention to the other girl's words.
Tracey cackled and put her arm around Daphne's shoulder, the two of them walking off into Hogsmeade.
Left alone, the two teenagers continued to stare at each other for a few more seconds, until Harry finally mustered up the courage to speak. Remembering Sirius' advice to always compliment a girl's appearance at the start of a date (though he still wasn't sure this was a date), he decided to open with that.
"Hi. You look nice today." He said.
"Thanks. You look nice too."
"Thanks."
"..."
"..."
Simultaneously, they both burst out laughing.
"It's like when we first met all over again!" Astoria said when she recovered.
"It is, isn't it?" Harry smiled. "Sorry about that, I was just a little stunned. I've never seen you in…er, makeup before."
I stunned him? Astoria thought happily. "It's not much, but Tracey helped me put it on. Do you like it?" She asked, batting her slightly mascaraed eyelashes at him.
"I do." He replied, trying to keep his cool at her cute action. "You look a bit older."
Astoria had to admit she liked the way Harry was looking at her. Maybe I'll have to get Tracey to help me with my makeup more often!
"I was a little stunned too," Astoria confessed. "I've never seen you in anything so…fashionable before, no offense. Is this new?" She asked, gesturing to his attire.
"Yeah," Harry said, as casually as possible. "I figured it was time to change things up a bit, start to pay more attention to my appearance, you know."
Harry felt bad lying, but Sirius had told him that under no circumstances was he to tell her that his godfather dressed him today.
"Well, I like it. You look ho-, older." She corrected herself.
"Holder?" He repeated, confusedly.
"Don't worry about it."
As they walked through Hogsmeade together on their way to the theater, Astoria noticed a lot of students glancing their way.
I guess we're still a bit of a fuss? Astoria thought, thinking back to all the rumors she had heard over the past few days about both Harry and her supposed connection to him.
"When do you think they'll stop staring?" She asked. "You'd think they'd get tired of gossiping about us by now, wouldn't you?"
"In my experience, they never get tired of gossiping." Harry glanced at her. "But also, uh…I don't think that's the only reason they're staring."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, like I said earlier, you're kind of gorgeous." He said with a light blush.
Astoria felt her heart flutter at Harry's candid compliment. "You didn't say I was gorgeous earlier. You said I looked nice."
"Oh," said Harry awkwardly. "Is there a difference?"
Astoria frowned. "Yes, a rather big one in fact. So which one is it? Am I nice, or gorgeous?"
"Both." Harry replied honestly. "And a lot of other things as well," he added shyly.
Astoria glanced around, a bit embarrassed, and noticed that she was drawing a lot of stares, particularly from the boys. Maybe Daphne was right, she thought to herself. Am I getting pretty?
It was at that moment when she noticed she wasn't only drawing stares from boys, but girls too. Only, the stares weren't directed at her, they were focused instead on the boy walking next to her. Something about their gazes seemed…hungry, and she found it didn't make her feel very good.
Astoria latched on to Harry's arm possessively. "So which play are we going to see today?" She asked, smiling prettily up at him.
Harry glanced away timorously from the girl, but made no move to shake her off his arm. "Um, I'm not actually sure, to be honest." He replied. "I got the tickets from the family friend I was telling you about."
"You mean, 'the family friend that I wasn't telling you about?'"
Harry avoided the temptation to look at the girl then, because he could hear the menace in her voice and was pretty sure if he saw her glare at him looking the way she was today he would melt on the spot. "Yeah, that one."
"Hmph." Astoria pouted.
She looked around again and saw that most of the other girl's gazes were now directed enviously at her, instead of hungrily at Harry.
Perfect! She thought, and then narrowed her eyes threateningly at a woman who was a little too old to be ogling her date.
"Um, Astoria?" Harry started, "is there a reason you're clinging on to my arm?"
"Because I want to. Does it bother you?"
"Oh, not at all!" Harry got out in a rush. "I was just, um, curious."
"Good."
Together they approached a large tent set up in an open lot in a wealthy district in Hogsmeade, where the Travelling Globe Theater was stationed. It was designed to look like a compact version of the exterior of the original Globe Theater, as it would have looked in Southwark centuries ago.
They showed their tickets to a professionally dressed middle-aged usher, who, with a flick of his wand, drew back the curtains on the tent and waved them through. As modestly sized edifices tended to be in the wizarding world, the tent was much bigger on the inside than the outside suggested. The interior was reminiscent of a modern theater in London, with a seating capacity that Harry guessed would be close to one thousand. While the seats and stage looked newly renovated, the exquisitely carved panelings along the walls and ceiling appeared original, giving a glimpse of what the theater must have looked like centuries earlier.
"This is incredible!" Astoria remarked, looking around in wonder as they walked to their seats. "It looks so…authentic!"
"Apparently," Harry said, reading from the back of the playbill they were given on entry. "The Traveling Globe Theater was built at the same time as the original. Only, it was made magically and was designed to fit inside a shrinkable pop-up so it could be used on a tour, hence the 'Traveling' in the name."
They followed the markings on their tickets past the balcony, through the upper and dress circles, and into the center of the stalls.
"Are you sure this is right?" Astoria asked, looking at the seats that held the same number as on their tickets.
"I think so." Harry answered. "Is there a problem?"
"Not at all! They're really good actually…I'm just surprised."
Astoria had been to a few stage plays with her family in the past, and knew that the center of the stalls tended to be the most sought after, and expensive seats.
That family friend must either be a diehard thespian, or have a lot of dispensable wealth. Astoria thought, feeling her curiosity surrounding Harry's mysterious friend grow ever further.
"Not that I'm complaining or anything, heaven knows I'm thrilled to be here with you Harry," she said, hoping her genuineness came across, "but shouldn't you have come with your family friend instead of me?"
Harry rubbed the back of his neck and avoided looking at her, two habits she was coming to associate with any mention of this 'family friend'. "Well," he started, "something came up, and he wasn't able to make it, so he told me to invite a friend."
A 'friend' huh? Astoria thought a bit crossly. Ever since she had realized her feelings for Harry, any mention of the word friend from him had left a distinctly unpleasant taste in her mouth. While she loved being Harry's friend, and wouldn't trade it for anything, she also didn't want to feel stuck there.
"I can't help but feel like we're not really the typical demographic here." Harry said in an effort to change the subject, turning around in his seat to look at the other playgoers as they filled the surrounding places.
Astoria followed his gaze and noticed that he was right – they seemed to be the youngest ones there, and by a margin of at least a couple decades. Everywhere she looked there were middle aged witches and wizards, expensively adorned and elegantly poised. She had to admit, they seemed a little underaged and underdressed.
"We're just getting a head start." Astoria replied, unbothered. "When we're older we can come back in our suits and dresses and tell the other old people 'Hey, we were coming here way before you were!' and stuff like that."
A collection of dirty looks were cast their way at the 'other old people' comment, but Harry didn't notice. He was rather fixated on the idea that Astoria intentionally or unintentionally implied that they would still be going to the theater together when they were older.
What did she mean by that? Harry thought, but wasn't given the opportunity for too much reflection as the lights dimmed and the performance began.
"Sweet Sebastian! Though magic dost flow within my veins whilst thou art untouched by its whim, in thine eyes I see a brilliance that outshines even the brightest wizard's Lumos."
"Fair Olivia, thy words do pierce mine heart with longing. Fate hath cast us asunder, bound by the chains of our disparate worlds–yet still, love doth bloom betwixt us like a rose amidst the thorns of circumstance."
As it turned out, Harry and Astoria were watching Olivia & Sebastian, a seminal and highly controversial wizard play relaying the forbidden romance between a pureblood witch and a muggle aristocrat. While it was merely a coincidence, Harry couldn't help but feel like the subject matter of the play hit a little close to home regarding his friendship with Astoria.
"Alas, Sebastian. In this labyrinth of impossibility, is there not a glimmer of hope?"
"Naught but if thou dost forsake thy kith and kin–yet, I cannot bid thee to make such a sacrifice. Nay, let us cherish the moments we steal away, for even in secret, our love shall burn brighter than any star."
Wait, Harry thought. The two lovers are meeting in secret, so that Olivia's friends don't turn on her? Isn't this almost exactly what me and Astoria did?
Harry glanced over discretely to see if Astoria was noticing the same connection he was, but the girl was entirely engrossed in the stage, eyes sparkling as she watched the actors perform.
Wow! She seems really into this. Putting aside all other thoughts, Harry returned his attention back to the stage.
In the final scene of the play, Sebastian was obliviated by Olivia's father, and upon seeing her lover with no memories of her, Olivia took her own life.
That's pretty intense! Harry thought, thankful in hindsight that he didn't take Neville, who definitely would have cried.
At that moment Harry heard a sniffle from beside him, and he turned to look at Astoria just as she wiped a single tear from her eye.
I guess even Astoria wasn't totally unaffected...
As he watched the pretty girl struggle to hold back tears, with eyes that were a little bit red and watery, he realized there were indeed also other reasons he was thankful he had gone with Astoria instead.
"That was amazing!" Astoria exclaimed as they left the theater. "So sad, but so amazing!"
Harry was relieved that Astoria had enjoyed herself. He had appreciated the play as well, but was honestly surprised the normally energetic girl was able to sit still for so long, captivated by the performance.
Astoria ran up to a lamppost elevated along the street and grasped it dramatically. With a hand out towards Harry, she started speaking in a pronounced fashion that drew the attention of the people around them, many of whom had also just watched the play.
"O, Harry!" Astoria cried. "Whyfore art thou a Gryffindor?"
Harry cringed in embarrassment as they became the subject of many curious glances. He didn't respond to the girl, and had to suppress the urge to tell her that 'wherefore' in old English meant 'why', and 'whyfore' wasn't a word.
"Whyfore dost thou ignore me?"
She looked at him expectantly, and Harry decided he had no other option but to play along, both for the sake of his friendship with Astoria, and for the girl's own sake to not look like a total crackpot in public.
"Alack, words fail me." He replied in an equally dramatic manner. "Thy beauty as boundless as the sea, thy laugh richer than any noble's purse–yet, I express nothing but a drop in the ocean of my love for you, sweet Astoria."
Woah, Astoria thought. He's good! Also, did he just say he loves me?
Much to Harry's dismay, his pronouncement brought even more gazes to their impromptu performance.
"Mine father wishes us apart!" Astoria continued. "Go, Harry. Find thou another woman, for I can never be beholden to you."
Her dialogue needs work, but the passion is there, the critic in Harry voiced.
"And yet," he replied. "I would not wish any companion in the world but you–should fate deny our union, then solitude shall be my sole partner."
The gathered spectators gave a scattered applause at this, and an embarrassed Harry and Astoria gave short bows and returned to the road.
"That was sort of fun." Astoria said with a smile. "For a second there I was afraid you were going to leave me hanging."
"For a second there I was considering it, but you're right, it was fun. We should do that more often."
Astoria looked at him mischievously. "You mean, like, roleplay?"
"Yeah, I guess so?" said Harry innocently, and a little too loudly. "I liked it. We should roleplay more often!"
Astoria covered a blush, and noticed the strange looks they were getting from the people around them. She found it equal parts cute and concerning that Harry was completely oblivious to the less wholesome possible interpretations of what he had just said.
They chatted and 'roleplayed' some more as they walked around Hogsmeade, eventually stopping by Madam Puddifoot's for some hot chocolate. Harry tried to pay using the pocket money Sirius had given him, but Astoria insisted on paying for both of them since he had been the one to get the tickets.
They spent a long time there, talking about the play and just about anything else they could think of, entirely ignoring the whispers and pointed fingers focused in their direction by students who saw them sitting in Hogsmeade's go-to 'date spot'.
When they were at risk of missing the last carriages back to Hogwarts, they finally stopped making excuses to spend more time together and headed back to the village gates. Astoria waved at Daphne and Tracey, who were standing further back in front of a carriage waiting for her, and called to them that she'd be there in a minute. Steeling her resolve, she turned to face Harry.
Now's my chance! Astoria thought. Other girls were sure to have taken notice of him today, I need to act before anyone else does.
"Thanks again for today, Harry." She said, smiling demurely at him with upturned eyes. "Do you think we could do this again sometime?"
The full force of her cuteness made Harry take a step back in wonderment, but he recovered swiftly to answer the girl.
"Hang out as friends? For sure!"
Astoria's jaw dropped open and she stared at him incredulously. Is this guy for real?
"Harry." She said calmly, trying to suppress the yell that was just underneath the surface.
"Yes?"
"We walked to a theater, arm in arm, where we watched a romantic tragedy about forbidden love."
"Right." Harry replied, unsure of where the girl was going with this.
"We then wandered around Hogsmeade for a while, occasionally roleplaying the two lovers out of the play we just watched."
"Right."
"We then spent over an hour in Madam Puddifoot's drinking hot chocolate."
"...Right." Harry had a feeling he knew where she was going with this now.
Astoria clapped her hands together and gave him a patient smile. "Does this, to you, sound like 'hanging out as friends?', as you so aptly put it?"
"No." Said Harry, hanging his head in shame. "It was a date. Honestly, I was kind of hoping it was, I just didn't want to make presumptions in case I was getting ahead of myself."
Astoria sighed. If nothing else, she thought, at least he's so hopeless with girls that he's not likely to get snatched up by anyone else anytime soon.
"I feel like I'm supposed to be mad at you right now, but the way you look in that sweater is making it really hard for me to hold a grudge," she said, shrugging.
She shifted her stance, and pointed her finger at him assertively. "But make no mistake; today was a date, and we're going to go on another one sometime soon, okay?"
"Okay!" He agreed happily. "I'd like that a lot." He ignored the voice in the back of his head that was telling him he really liked the commanding tone of voice the younger girl was taking with him.
"Astoria!" Daphne called from the carriages. "Hurry up, or we'll have to walk back to school!"
Astoria looked at Harry for one more moment, and making up her mind, stepped up to him. Getting on the tips of her toes, she gave him a quick peck on the cheek.
"Bye Harry!" She called, as she turned around and ran back to Daphne and Tracey.
Harry was feeling pretty good about his successful date, and extra good about how it had ended, and was riding high when he got back to school in the evening.
His good humor was swiftly ruined by Ron.
"Dragons, Harry!" Ron shouted in concern as Harry walked into the Gryffindor common room.
Harry looked at his friend oddly. "What are you talking about, Ron?"
"The first task, Harry!" Ron said, the color gone from his face. "You'll have to fight a dragon!"
"Oh." Replied Harry lamely, and as the words sunk in, his face lost its color as well.
A dragon!? How am I supposed to fight a dragon!?
Harry mentally reviewed all of the information Ron had shared with him earlier that night. Ron's brother Charlie, who worked with dragons in Romania, had informed him that he would be coming to Hogwarts for the first task. When pressed for information, he had eventually told Ron that the first task would pit the champions against a dragon apiece, and that they were currently being held deep in the Forbidden Forest.
Relax Harry, the boy told himself. Just remember what Sirius taught you.
Harry took a deep breath.
Gah! He screamed in his head. How am I supposed to win the duel before it starts if the duel is against a dragon!?
The next day, once Harry had calmed down a bit, he thought about what Sirius would've done in his position and decided to start with some information gathering. Wearing the invisibility cloak he had been given on his first Christmas at Hogwarts, he snuck through the Forbidden Forest and towards the encampment where Charlie had told Ron the dragons were being held.
Harry watched in terror and awe as four huge dragons rattled their cages, occasionally breathing spouts of fire in the direction of the trainers. The trainers, one of whom Harry guessed to be Charlie thanks to his bright orange hair, seemed to be in the middle of feeding each dragon a massive slab of meat that looked vaguely sheeplike.
While every dragon devoured their 'lunch' with a ferocity that left him with no doubt as to what would happen to his body if he failed to defeat it, one dragon in particular stood out from the pack. This one, distinctly larger than the other three and with dangerous looking spikes covering its spine and tail, forwent its meal in favor of attacking its cage with such vigor Harry thought it could break free at any moment. When the trainers tried to prod the dragon with spells, it simply shot back a thick pillar of fire that the trainers had to jump out of the way to avoid.
I know which dragon I don't want to face. Harry thought, before remembering he didn't really want to face any of them.
The trainer Harry believed to be Charlie darted forward dangerously close to the unruly beast, and thrust his wand towards a set of wards inscribed in the ground around the crate. The runes produced what looked to be some sort of purple glitter that encircled the dragon, absorbing into its hide. Harry watched as the creature took a few more swings in protest at its cage and roared one last time before ungainly slumping to the ground, unconscious.
Great! Harry thought sarcastically, watching the rise and fall of the dragon's spiked back as it slumbered. All I need to do to beat a dragon is to inscribe a complex series of wards around it, and then survive while getting close enough to activate them!
Sticking around for a little while longer, Harry took note of the appearances of each of the four dragons so he could research them with Hermione later. He wrote down everything else he could possibly think of, including how fast they seemed to move around in their cages, and how sharp he estimated their talons to be. Eventually, he figured he had gathered as much information as he was going to be able to get, and headed off back to Hogwarts with his notebooks in hand.
After dinner, Hermione found Harry and Ron in the common room discussing strategy for the first task, and placed a heavy tome on the table in front of them.
"I think I found them." She started, flipping to bookmarked pages as she listed off the dragons Harry saw. "You saw a Swedish Short-Snout, a Common Welsh Green, and a Chinese Fireball. All three of those dragons are, as dragons tend to be, incredibly dangerous."
"What about the spiky one?" Harry asked, with a bad feeling in his gut.
Hermione frowned. "If I'm correct – and I'm afraid I am, that's a Hungarian Horntail."
"A Horntail!?" Ron bellowed, scaring some of their fellow housemates seated further away in the room. "My brother told me about those, they're supposed to be one of the most deadly and aggressive breeds out there!"
"Exactly." Hermione said, her frown deepening. "Why on earth they thought it would be a good idea to bring one of those into a tournament for students is beyond me."
That pretty much matches my assessment as well, Harry thought.
"So I'm going to have to fight against one of these?" He asked, looking at the pages Hermione had bookmarked.
Hermione shook her head. "I doubt even the ministry would be insane enough to actually expect you to defeat a dragon, leaving aside the moral implications of staging a deathmatch against an endangered species. More likely you'll have to survive the dragon's attacks while completing some sort of objective."
Harry slumped in his seat. "That doesn't sound a whole lot easier to me." He said dejectedly.
"It isn't." Hermione agreed, giving him a sympathetic look.
"Hey, you beat a basilisk. How much harder could a dragon be?"
Harry and Hermione both glared at Ron for his nonchalance.
He shrugged guiltily. "I'm just trying to help. I mean, you killed the 'King of Serpents'. Isn't a dragon kind of just, a sky serpent? Surely that's a step down from a Basilisk?"
"Ron, if you don't mind we're trying to have-"
"Wait!" Harry shouted, cutting off Hermione. "You may be on to something Ron."
"Really?" Asked Hermione, surprised.
"Really?" Asked Ron, even more surprised.
"Cory!" Harry shouted in Parseltongue at the clearing he had met the snake in earlier that year, during his picnic with Astoria.
He had snuck out of the castle in his cloak that night, and walked by foot down to Hogsmeade. He knew his idea was a long shot, but as Sirius had once told him; 'A bad plan is better than no plan'.
"Cory, are you there?"
Just as Harry was about to give up and head back to Hogwarts, a familiar voice came from the tall grass around him.
"Greetings, Harry Potter. It is a pleasure to see you once again. To what do I owe this visit?"
The small green viper slithered into view, and brought itself to full size, reaching around Harry's knee. Out of respect, Harry crouched down so he would be eye level with the little snake.
"I needed to ask you a question." Harry hissed, hoping his wild guess was correct. "Do you by any chance know if dragons can speak Parseltongue?"
The snake closed its slitted red eyes in thought. "The wild ones often do," he replied, "but dragon breeding has become…tainted, over the years. Why do you ask?"
Harry considered for a while how best to explain his situation to the snake. "I need to consult with a few, but I wasn't sure if I would be able to communicate with them or not. I was hoping to offer them a deal of sorts."
"You speak of the four caged dragons in the forest, do you not?" Cory hissed inquiringly.
"...Yes."
The snake paused, its eyes closing once again. "Let me talk with them." Cory said after a while. "Dragons and humans have a…colorful history, and you will likely not survive long enough to speak with them should you appear unannounced – I will request an audience for you."
Harry walked with Cory, who he noted was quite fast, to the edge of the forbidden forest.
"Wait for me here." The snake told Harry, and he slithered away, lost in the dark copse of trees.
Harry stood around in the moonlight, fidgeting and doubting the logic of his plan. While bribing the dragons to spare his life didn't seem like the smartest solution, it was the best he had come up with. In any case, it was certainly more clever than one of Ron's ideas from earlier that day, which entailed Harry summoning his broom and trying to outfly it.
It was almost an hour before Cory finally returned, wriggling through the grass and back up to Harry.
"Three of the dragons are…incapable of speech," Cory said. "The last one, however, was interested in hearing more about your 'deal'. She gave her word she wouldn't incinerate you before you said your piece."
"Uh, okay…" Harry said skeptically.
"A dragon never goes back on their word." Cory supplied.
"Is that supposed to make me feel better?"
"Not really."
Harry steeled his nerves and made his decision. Ultimately, it hadn't been a hard choice. He could either face a dragon the day after tomorrow, entirely unprepared, or he could take his chances now, with assurances he would at least be heard out before he was turned to ash.
"Okay, Cory. Lead on."
"Come closer, hatchling, so I can gaze upon your visage." A deep feminine voice rumbled in Parseltongue.
Of course the only dragon capable of speaking to me would be the Hungarian Horntail! Harry lamented his bad luck.
Silently, of course.
"Huh!" she huffed, taking Harry's appearance in as he approached. "For one so young, your eyes tell of a deep pain that usually takes humans decades to develop."
"Thank you, oh great and powerful Dragon." Harry replied deferentially, trying to appeal to her sense of pride.
"It wasn't a compliment."
"Of course. My apologies for my profound ignorance."
"And stop speaking like that," she snapped. "I hate a submissive man."
Harry stood up straight, trying to hide his shock. "Sor- I mean, sure. Okay."
"Better," she said. "Now tell me. For what reason did you seek an audience with me?"
He took a deep breath to collect himself, and recited the speech he had been preparing for the past hour. "I am being forced to participate in a wizard tournament." He explained. "I recently found out that I'll be forced to face one of you four dragons as my first challenge, and knowing I had no chance in a fair fight, I was hoping to make a deal in advance."
"Ah," the huge dragon let out a breath, and the uncomfortable warmth of the exhaled air made Harry start to sweat. "I was wondering why we were brought here. So I'm to face a human hatchling in a match? You were smart to come to me first, I'll give you that – I would've torn you apart in half a second on the field."
"Was that one a compliment?" Harry asked.
The dragon let out a rumbling laugh. "Yes, little human."
Harry breathed a sigh of relief. She didn't seem to want to kill him just yet, so it was time to make his offer.
"I have gold. Lots of it."
The dragon stared at him silently for a few seconds, and Harry got ready to run. "What use do you suppose I have for gold?" She asked eventually.
"Well, uh, you're a dragon…" He began, "I thought that maybe you'd like, uh, have a pile of-"
"I highly recommend you don't finish that thought." The dragon hissed menacingly. "Some dragons find those stereotypes rather offensive…"
"I won't apologize, because I'm not submissive." Harry said, trying to prevent his voice from shaking as he attempted to maneuver the conversation back to safer territory without angering the dragon. "But rest assured it's not a mistake I'll make again."
The Horntail remained silent for another moment, staring at him oddly, and spoke again just as Harry was about to hightail it out of the forest. "There is only one thing you can do for me, human. Succeed, and I'll give you my word that I will spare your life in this 'tournament'."
For the first time since he found out about the first task, Harry felt a glimmer of hope surge through him. "And what would that be?"
Harry moved silently under his invisibility cloak as he searched through the encampment looking for the Hungarian Horntail's eggs. It didn't prove very difficult as the trainer's campsite, set up some distance away from the dragon cages, was not very large. After only a few minutes, Harry came across a locked enclosure which contained several piles of eggs of varying shapes, colors, and sizes.
How do I know which ones are the Horntail's? Harry asked himself, casting a tiny lumos spell with his wand in an attempt to see better. With the aid of the light, Harry noted the differences between the eggs, and came to the conclusion that the green and red eggs probably belonged to the Welsh Green and the Fireball respectively.
I can't believe I figured that one out all by myself! He thought sarcastically.
The final two sets of eggs were a closer call, but Harry could just feel that the slate gray, textured eggs were the Horntail's, as opposed to the smoother white ones.
That's great and all, but how do I get into the enclosure to steal the eggs?
Harry skulked back through the camp and towards a large tent he had noticed earlier, where he was guessing the trainers slept. Still hidden by his cloak, he slowly unzipped the front flap and snuck in.
The interior of the tent was a sparsely but neatly decorated affair, with shelves of books and equipment lining the far walls, and a half dozen beds and trunks for the staff towards the front.
As Harry had been hoping, each bed was filled with a sleeping body, and he tiptoed around them to the back of the tent, where various tools hung from a steel pegboard. While he saw a plethora of magically enchanted lassos and collars, as well as some accoutrements that Harry could only imagine being used as weapons, there were no keys in sight.
Harry sighed mentally, as he didn't dare make a sound within the confines of the tent.
Nothing can ever be easy for me, can it?
Harry crept to one of the beds, where a young man with a shock of orange hair lay snoring. He figured that if his plan failed and Charlie woke up, he'd be the only one Harry might have a chance of convincing to remain silent, due to his connection with the Weasley family.
Carefully lifting up the corner of Charlie's bedsheets, and noticing that the man's pants did in fact have pockets, he went searching. Harry sleekly pried the pocket open with his fingers, and slipped his hand in to feel around for a key.
"Ghh." Charlie muttered in his sleep.
Harry froze.
Charlie shuffled, and turned over, crushing Harry's hand between the mattress and his thigh.
Harry's fingers felt the key, and he grabbed hold of it.
"Ooh!" Charlie murmured.
Harry just barely suppressed the urge to scream in horror. He quickly let go of the 'key'.
After trying again and this time finding what he hoped was the correct key, Harry slowly extricated his hand from his best friend's older brother's pocket.
"Mmm…" Charlie moaned, still sound asleep.
Doing his best to repress the memories of the past minute to a strongbox within a dark cupboard of a miniscule corner in his mind palace, Harry left the tent quickly and invisibly, key in hand.
"I went through hell for these." Harry whispered in Parseltongue to the Horntail, lifting two gray eggs, one in each hand. "Please tell me they're yours?"
"My babies!" The dragon cried as she saw them, confirming Harry's suspicions. "Bring them to me!"
Harry set both of the eggs gently down on the floor of the cage, only a little nervous to be sticking his hand into the Horntail's bite range.
As he withdrew his hand, the dragon's huge mouth came down upon the eggs and swallowed them whole.
"Holy sh-" Harry cut off his alarmed shout before he could accidentally wake the trainers.
Noticing his reaction, the dragon chuckled. "Fear not, little mortal," she said. "My eggs will remain intact and safe in my stomach until I am back home in Hungary, where I will regurgitate them."
Harry didn't answer, as he was too busy reeling from this unexpected and unneeded up-close lesson on dragon biology.
"You made sure they will not notice the eggs are missing?" She asked tentatively into the silence.
I guess even dragon mommies care about their babies. Harry remarked, picking up on the hesitation in the Horntail's voice.
"They will not." He affirmed with more confidence than he felt. He had cast one of the spells he found in the book Sirius had given him, which was similar to the Geminio spell in that it duplicated an object, but with better effects. The duplicates would stand up to all but the most intense magical scrutinies, but only lasted a few days before disappearing. For Harry's purposes, he was hoping that would be enough.
"Then I will uphold my end of the bargain," the dragon replied. "Should you be matched against me in this tournament, I will do you no harm before I escape. Furthermore, while even my ability to communicate with the other dragons is limited, I will try to inform them that you are no threat."
"Do they not wish to escape as well?" Harry asked curiously.
"They wish for nothing; their lineage no longer thinks, as you and I do." She sighed wistfully. "In any case, they were bred and born in captivity – it's where they belong. For my part, I'd prefer to be free to tend to my brood without the constant surveillance of softskins."
The derogatory way the dragon said 'softskin' made Harry feel like it was probably something he should be taking offense over.
Needless to say, he didn't express his hurt feelings at that moment.
"Thank you once again." Harry said instead.
"Don't thank me, hatchling. It was a mutually beneficial arrangement."
"In that case, pleasure doing business with you."
Harry heard the dragon laugh softly from behind him as he headed back towards Hogwarts, hoping he'd be able to catch at least a couple hours of sleep before his first class in the morning.
"Master Sirius, a letter from Master Harry has arrived."
Sirius Black turned to look at his house elf in excitement. "Good, good! Bring it here Kreacher, I've been waiting for this one. He promised to tell me how his date went!"
Kreacher handed the letter to Sirius, who tore into it with enthusiasm.
Dear Padfoot, he read.
The date with Astoria went very well, thanks once again for the tickets. We both enjoyed the play immensely.
When the performance was finished, we were inspired to engage in 'roleplay', which was very fun.
"Kreacher, wait!" Sirius called to the elf, who was trying to tiptoe out of the room.
"Yes, master?" Kreacher replied nervously.
"Do you ever get that feeling, where you really wanted something to happen, but now that it's really happening, you start to wonder if it's all happening too soon?"
"No, master. I can't say I do."
"Oh."
Sirius continued reading the letter.
We then went to Madam Puddifoot's to drink hot chocolate and chat. It was a wonderful day, and one I'll never forget.
By the way, I know what you mean now about the importance of clothes. She said she liked my outfit, so thank you for helping me look cool!
"Kreacher, wait!"
"I haven't moved, master."
"I take back what I said before," Sirius said, wiping tears out of his eyes. "This is everything I've ever wanted."
Kreacher was unsure what his duty as a house elf demanded he do in this instance, so he just shuffled his feet awkwardly.
Sirius threw the letter aside, and took out his little book to start planning a wedding.
Due to the blurring of his vision caused by excessive crying, Sirius failed to notice the postscript underneath Harry's signature.
P.S. - For the first task, I will be made to face a dragon. But don't panic, I have a plan.