Waking in the morning Harry had some dread, he'd forgotten that this was the day of the first task and he had no idea what the hell he was going to be up against. Everything happening to him the last few days had finally managed to make him forget about the tournament in its entirety. But that had the problem of also taking away crucial time he might have needed to get ready for the task.
"You're stressed out," Nymphadora said as she saw Harry sitting on the edge of the mattress clearly deep in thought. She crawled over it and gripped his shoulder's giving him a light massage.
"I am, I mean, what would you do if you didn't know what you were going to be fighting?" Harry asked while closing his eyes, he did enjoy the feeling of the tension leaving his body.
"Play to my strengths," Nymphadora shrugged because this sounded exactly like something Mad-Eye would have done to her during training. "And since you're a clever, resourceful and powerful wizard, then you have a lot of options."
"And honestly, this is basically some ministry sponsored sports for school children, they toned it down over the previous ones," Nymphadora said as she pulled Harry back onto the bed. With a grin she licked her lips and reached into his pajama bottoms and started to stroke his shaft. "And you, my lovely, hard as a rock husband, have survived things no one else has, you got this in the bag. And that means I get you in the sheets."
If there was going to be anything that takes away his concerns it was his wife mounting him until he was on the verge of blacking out. On shaky legs he came out of his shared room and made his way to the Great Hall for breakfast, he sat down at the table and started to dig in to fill his stomach after all that activity in the morning.
He managed a few minutes before what would have been normal behavior for Ron and Hermione to sit next to him, just became an irritation. Instead he focused on getting his energy back up, he couldn't let himself get distracted from what he had to do today.
Thankfully before either Hermione worked up the courage to break the tension or Ron got tired of being ignored, the brunette was pushed down a spot with a yelp and another body took her place. "Sorry hubby," Nymphadora grinned and kissed Harry on the cheek. "I just needed to find this."
Harry saw his wife place what looked to be a well-worn tome on the table as she pinched one of his sausages. "I've not seen that book before?" Harry commented because it was not a textbook any of his previous teachers had assigned.
"I'd reckon not, it's one I had to use in my second year of Auror training with that lunatic up there," nudging her head up to the head table where Mad-Eye was checking his food, then the food of the person next to him in case somehow that attacked him too. Or at least that was her guess to why he did that.
"And I got it out because we can go over some of these spells this morning before you go in and rock that first event," Nymphadora explained the purpose of digging that out of her desk. It was a good book that had loads of spells, some of which she used in real fights against the dark wizards and even more still she knew she couldn't pull off because it was like some of the spells in there were added if one of them happened to secretly be the next Merlin. But she figured her husband might actually be able to handle the really draining ones with how much oomph he can put into them.
"So we just do some practice together?" Harry asked as his wife filled her own plate with much healthier choices than he had and it started getting him thinking that maybe he might do the same.
"Yup, I said I wanted to see you cut loose. And since it'd take forever to get your clearance to use the auror training field back at the ministry, I'm sure we can find a room here that can accommodate," Nymphadroa wiggled eagerly to see Harry do some focused magic.
Ron, having gotten tired of being ignored, just let out an annoyed huff and walked away to sit somewhere else because he was too intimidated by the older witch to start something, especially after the last night's dinner where she cussed out the professors without a single hint of fear or repercussion.
Hermione meanwhile opened her mouth to speak up about this more advanced magic when the witch claiming to be her best friend's wife turned on her as if knowing what she was thinking. "Privately," smirking as she then refocused on Harry. "Can't have just anyone trying these auror level spells, they could get hurt without proper supervision."
Once they had their fill of food, the couple departed from the Great Hall with the purpose of finding a suitable room that no one would mind if they ended up trashing it.
"Oh here's good," Nymphadora said as she found a classroom covered in dust, clearly disused for a good century.
Harry was sent to cast some cleaning charms so they had a better space to work while Nymphadora put up some wards to protect the room from stray spellfire and after they were done Harry came over to Nym's side to read over her shoulder. "Probably not that one, not sure you'd need to be able to use a spell to identify glitter powder. Hmm maybe not the one that creates handcuffs, of course that gives me an idea to use it on you later."
"Nym," Harry whined as the idea of his wife restraining him was quite erotic but he didn't want to be distracted right now. "Oh that one sounds cool."
"Protego horribilis, I can definitely teach you that, but it's a designed to protect you against most hexes and curses, which to be frank I don't think the first task is going to put you against someone in a duel," Nymphadora said as she turned the page. "Definitely a third task kind of thing to have you all fight each other, wouldn't be that entertaining to have it happen first right?"
Nodding his head because he took a moment to think about how he would structure a tournament like this and he would want the champions to fight at the end, it would be much better to build that hype. "That makes sense, oh how about this one. Piertotum Locomotor."
"That could be useful, just need to make something with transfiguration and then you can bring it to life," Nymphadora said as she flicked her wand to turn a few desks and chairs into rocking horses.
They weren't all that effective at moving because of their design but Harry found it really wasn't all that difficult to get these small toys to wobble around. "At least if they put things like suits of armor or statues somewhere you can take advantage of that now," Nymphadora grinned because Harry was really smiling about being able to cast some higher level magic. He was a quick learner she found.
"But let's work on some blasting, there's really not too many problems you couldn't overcome by blowing them up. So we got the Bombarda Maxima," Nymphadora demonstrated and her spell turned a large desk in the back of the room to splinters.
"Oh wicked," Harry grinned and he let his wife get him ready to cast.
Nymphadora hadn't expected the size of the explosion, she also didn't see a whole lot of it because the entire room shook so violently that it knocked her to the ground.
"Okay," she grunted as she felt that she'd been pelted by debris. "Next we work on healing spells, and how to set up protection from shrapnel."
"Sounds like a good idea," Harry agreed because he'd taken a couple of hits from the blast.
After that event, Nymphadora decided against purely offensive spells for her husband, at least in confined quarters like a classroom. There were more, control focused magics she could have him safely work on instead.
Lunch came around and the two returned to the Great Hall in desperate need of sustenance. "Hubby," Nymphadora barked out a laugh. "Whatever they put in front of you is not going to know what hit it."
"Thanks Nymphadora," Harry smiled at the praise as he dug into his normal lunch but also pulled a salad to go along with it.
Once they were finished Professor McGonagall came over from the head table. "Mr. Potter, it is time for the first task, I will show you to the tent where the other champions are congregating."
It was obvious that Minerva had only intended for Harry to follow her but after last night she wasn't really comfortable with admonishing the boy's new wife. She'd been up very late thinking about her choices with regards to Harry Potter. So she allowed the metamorph to follow them down the path to the tent attached to the new stadium.
Once they went inside, Nymphadora turned on Harry. "Looks like we have this all to ourselves for a bit, how about I make you see God?" Nymphadora growled as she licked her lips and moved to start unbuttoning Harry's jeans when a throat very forcefully and intentionally cleared its throat.
"Please don't," Cedric pleaded as he came around from where he had just stepped out of the changing room into his uniform.
"Diggy," Nymphadora pouted as she saw her former underclassman watching the two of them, with her having gotten Harry's pants halfway down his legs. "Couldn't you have come out a few minutes later?"
"Not if I wanted to avoid hearing any of this, and please don't call me Diggy Tonks," Cedric sighed as he pinched his brow. "None of the younger kids know you and Penny used to call me that."
"Diggy?" Harry raised an eyebrow as he pulled up his pants and secured them.
"Don't make me explain it, it's the same as when Malfoy calls you Potty, just people with way too large egos finding a cheap laugh," Cedric pouted as Harry moved past him to the changing booth provided while the former Hufflepuff just grinned in amusement for her old teasing.
"And I'm sure that you following Penelope around in your first year, wanting to hold her hand all the time, was just because you kept 'getting lost' in the hallways," Nymphadora puckered her lips. "Oh Penny I scwaped my knee, can you kiss my boo boo better."
"You are an actual menace. Why are you back here?" Cedric complained because he liked Tonks, she was a great example of what it meant to be a Hufflepuff but he was not sad to see her go because she was always getting up to mischief.
"Cus I just couldn't live without having a pretty boy to pick on," Nymphadora grinned as she flicked her wand so that the wall of the changing room became transparent to those outside it so she could watch her husband strip out of his robes. "So I went and snatched me up a hubby. A nice tasty hubby that's all mine."
Cedric turned his head to see what Tonks had done and let out a groan because it was clear that Tonks was just ogling Harry without him knowing. "Is there something wrong with you?" he remembered her liking to get her pranks and teasing in, but she wasn't like this before, at least he didn't think she was.
Flicking her wand she undid the charm just before Harry came back out so he wouldn't know she was spying on him, he likely wouldn't mind if he found out she was watching him change clothes but him being unaware just elevated her enjoyment of it all.
"Probably, heck every witch in my family might be crazy. It just depends on if we find out what, or more importantly who, we go crazy for. For my aunt Bellatrix it was the Dark Lord, and for me, it's my wonderful, amazing husband who is going to wipe the floor with all of you."
Harry looked up as he finished buttoning his jersey to see Nymphadora had just addressed all three champions. He was a little embarrassed that she was putting him on the spot with that declaration but when he saw that Cedric was smirking and the other two champions didn't look offended he went back over to Nym's side as Viktor and Fleur went to change into their uniforms as well.
That gave Nymphadora a few minutes to just push her husband up against a table and start to assault his mouth. Which Harry had no complaints about, well he had one but it was hard to tell her to stop because Cedric was standing nearby when she didn't let up for more than a few seconds to breath.
But the tent flap opening and the snap flash of a camera bulb was enough to break them apart. Harry's face covered in a few spots of lipstick and a bit disoriented looked around the room to see that everyone else was now ready, and that reporter from the Weighing of the Wands was back and she was grinning like a cat that caught the canary.
"Unfortunately this area is for champions and tournament officials only, so you will need to find your way up to the stands," Bartimus Crouch cleared his throat. He did want to get this event started and it did not require the presence of a famous boy's groupie.
"Not a problem," Nymphadora smirked as she walked past the other adults. "See you when you win hubby."
"Bye," Harry meekly responded before hearing snickering behind him. "Sh-shut up Diggy."
After leaving Harry in the tent with the other champions, Nymphadora started to head up to find a place to stay in the stands when she heard someone calling out for her. "Hey Tonksie, over here," a familiar voice carried over to her.
Turning her head she saw in the stands with other visitors was Charlie Weasley, an old friend of hers from her own time in Hogwarts, changing course to make her way up to sit with him she plopped into a seat that got vacated by someone else. She noticed that these were some primo seats, as close to the pit as could be without being inside it.
"Chuck Weasel, it's been too long, surprised to see you here" Nymphadora jested as Charlie stuck his tongue out at her for the childish nickname. "And for the record it's Potter now."
"We're here for the task and what do you mean by that?" Charlie blinked in confusion, because he didn't understand what Tonks meant by that statement. "What's Potter now?"
"I am, a couple days ago I married the little stud muffin," Nymphadora smirked at how Charlie's jaw dropped.
"... uh what?! How?" sputtering to try and find the right question to start off with. "You two've been dating this whole time?"
"Nah, Black contract, was pretty ticked off at first but," Nymphadora shrugged noncommittally as she got over that irritation a day ago. "He's a surprisingly amazing wizard."
"Yeah, I found that out a couple years ago," Charlie nodded his head in agreement with that statement. "Ginny wouldn't be here if it wasn't for him. Which is why I don't feel guilty at all about giving him a hint on what the first task was."
"What hint?" Nymphadora blinked because Harry had just told her this morning he had no idea what he was up against.
"Well I told Ron to talk with Harry so he could meet up with Hagrid a few nights ago and he'd show him what we brought," Charlie answered while leaning back to stretch in his seat.
"Charlie, Ron hasn't talked to Harry in days. Your brother's been a jealous prat for weeks about this tournament," Nymphadora slowly responded to emphasize how important it was to clear up this confusion now because in her periphery she could see the judges start to come into their booth which would signify the event was about to begin.
"But then he doesn't know," Charlie sucked in a breath because now a fourteen-year-old was about to go into a pit with a dragon and there was one dragon that had to be a last-minute addition that was far more dangerous than the others.
"Charlie, when you said you were here for the task, what did you mean?" Nymphadora quickly asked, fear creeping into her voice because she knew that after graduating Charlie had landed his dream job and if she was right she might be going from newlywed to widow by the end of the day. She heard Dumbledore begin the event and on the far end of the pit a large gate was opening up.
"I didn't say I was here, I said we were here," pointing his finger down the line at the other handlers. "We're here to wrangle the dragons back after each champion has their turn. Oh god, Harry's going to be going in completely blind."
"We have to stop this, he'll be killed," Nymphadora frantically said as she vaulted over the back of her seat to race up the steps just as the first dragon came out into the arena. She assumed this was going to be simple events for school children, that's why she'd been so dismissive of the severity of the situation before. But now she understood there was real danger involved here.
Charlie wanted to follow but he had to do his job of wrangling the dragon if they were called to do so. He really hoped that the new Mrs. Potter would be able to convince the judges to pull Harry from this competition because he and the other handlers had protested the ministry picking that dragon for this competition.
The original three chosen were more docile breeds, Welsh Greens were small for dragons at only eighteen feet in length on average and they avoided direct conflict with humans preferring to feast on sheep.
The Swedish Short-snout, which was the dragon in the pit with Cedric Diggory, was a bit larger at twenty-two feet in length and had hotter fire than most but it was the dragon breed that had the lowest recorded number of deaths involving humans.
The final original dragon had been a Chinese Fireball. A tad larger than the others at twenty-five feet and while it was slimmer and faster, it was more intelligent than most and understood English to a surprising level, they had even been able to explain to the dragon what the task was and that it wasn't to kill or eat the human and it would be given extra sheep once it was all done.
While still risky if the champion simply had no plan at all for facing off against them, there was no real danger because they could all jump in and corral the dragon back if needed.
But it was the last one that they were worried about.
A Hungarian Horntail. That was a truly frightening beast. Fifty feet long and extremely dangerous. Its size made it one of the largest dragon breeds out there, but coupled with its razor-sharp talons, a fire hot enough to melt most metals in seconds and the worst part. The eyes.
Looking into that animal's eyes Charlie knew it was intelligent, in the way that you can see that it was envisioning all the ways it could hurt and kill you if you ever let your guard down around it. But that damn Ministry Official had picked it, claiming that having one 'real' dragon would surely make the first event actually worth watching.
He'd ignored them repeatedly telling him that the dragon was barely controllable on the preserves, it took two full teams just to feed it safely so it didn't get any bright ideas of attacking and overpowering just one group. But he didn't listen.
And now that Cedric had gotten past his dragon, and the French champion was coming out against her Welsh Green, he worried even more that Harry had drawn the short straw.
"What do you mean you can't just pull Harry out of this?" Nymphadora said as she was allowed into the judge's booth by the assigned auror for the event. She was grateful that Kinglsey could tell that she urgently needed to get in by the look on her face, he'd later admit that it was because Nymphadora would probably threaten him with that photo of last June's raid on potion ingredient smugglers and he didn't need that getting to the presses.
"The event has already begun Mrs. Potter," Albus reiterated his position that he couldn't simply just halt the event. Well he could but he'd need a good reason for it, and someone getting cold feet didn't constitute a good reason.
"But Harry doesn't know what he's going to be up against," Nymphadora said as she saw the second champion finishing up her run.
"Well of course he doesn't," Albus chuckled lightly because that just seemed amusing. "That was the purpose of keeping it all a secret from the champions."
"But he was supposed to know, Ron was supposed to tell Harry to meet up with Hagrid over the weekend to see the dragons but Ron never told him," Nymphadora explained because if Charlie, Ron or Hagrid got in trouble for potentially sharing the information with a champion, she'd take that over a dead husband every day of the week and twice on Sundays.
"Zere was nobody else with us on that outing with your groundskeeper?" Madam Maxime said before widening her eyes and covering her mouth.
"Wait-" Nymphadora stepped around the headmaster. "You knew?"
"I had… been invited by Sir 'Agrid and he wanted to show me the beasts, as a means to impress me on what he believed to be a date," Olympe admitted because everyone else in the booth was looking at her curiously.
"A shame, truly dishonorable, but what else to expect from Beauxbatons," Headmaster Karkaroff smugly said.
"Oh shove it Igor, you were there too, I saw you on the edge of the clearing," Olympe shortly snapped back at the man for trying to act as if he was oh so innocent in all this.
"So you both knew," Nymphadora gaped in shock that this entire tournament was starting off like a sham.
"I am quite disappointed in you both," Albus looked down his nose at the two visiting headmasters. All the while Viktor Krum was busy with his own dragon in the pit, the Chinese Fireball.
But Nymphadora Potter was not like Albus Dumbledore, she didn't get disappointed, she got pissed. "How about I go send a message to Madam Bones about all this, figure out just what else you two are cheating about. Did you tell your champions what they would be facing? Because I'm sure she'd get to the bottom of this and no doubt the ICW and your nation's ministers would be very interested to hear just how you're conspiring against this event for international cooperation."
This threat had both Olympe and Igor looking quite fearful because it would completely taint their personal and professional reputations for a scandal like this to come out, even more it would reflect so poorly on their schools that they both resorted to cheating at the first possible chance. They both had met with their Ministers for Magic many times throughout their careers and neither would like the dishonor that this would bring to their nations. The damage would be incalculable, and they would surely be out of their jobs the moment it was confirmed what they had done.
Their prized students might as well just drop out of school altogether and become recluses if the press started printing that instead of coming straight to the other judges or Mr. Crouch about being given this information, they had kept it secret. Getting rightly caught as cheaters would ruin their lives, one a Quidditch superstar that would have his records stricken and the other a veela beauty that would result in her species being defamed.
"Nymphadora, I don't think we need to involve the aurors, there are much simpler solutions available," Albus said because he didn't really want to have this nasty business brought into the light. It would only serve to create more drama around the tournament.
"I won't if you get Harry out of this right now," Nymphadora bargained for her silence. Already this tournament left a sour taste in her mouth and she no longer cared for it and would rather just pull Harry away from the danger.
Humming in thought because it would take a champion being completely disabled for a period of longer than 24 hours for them to declare them unfit for the task, it wouldn't get them out of the tournament but would mean that they did not have to perform said task. Albus stroked his beard because whatever he did would have to be unable to be simply undone by someone like Poppy. However before he could come to a decision on which method to use, the horn blared and the gate opened again.
With panic Nymphadora looked to the gate where the last dragon would come out and she felt her eyes widen in fear. "That's not a dragon, that's a monster," she barely whispered out as the massive, black scaled winged demon crawled forward. It's very presence was enough to make the previous ecstatic crowd fall into silence.
The Hungarian Horntail swept its gaze across the crowd, yellow eyes taking in every little morsel just waiting to be devoured and their bones used to make a nest for her clutch. A tongue flicked out running over dagger-like teeth, the smells on her tongue telling her the same spells to keep her away from the edges of her pen were in place so she would not climb into the stands. But there was fear, it was thick in the air and she drank it all in.
Then another scent, a lone human had crossed into her territory and she realized the humans were sacrificing one of their own to her. Finally, she could return to her proper diet; to eat whatever she wanted.
With a roar that caused screams she raced across the stone, gouging boulders and approaching her meal at speeds that belied her size. Pupils dilated into slits she saw the snack, a wizard who aimed his stick at her. One stick, not enough when it took as many as claws she had in those same sticks to subdue her.
Launching her neck down with mouth open to snap down and kill her meal she screeched as her face slammed into a solid blue dome. Blinking in confusion she pulled back just in time to hear the food speak.
Harry was so glad that he had thrown up a protego as his first spell. After seeing that little dragon in his palm that Mr. Bagman had him draw; he figured his first step to winning this event was to protect himself from being attacked the moment he stepped onto the field. He knew he'd be attacked, dragons even in muggle fiction were fierce, but he hadn't expected such an immediate attempt on his life. But it just meant that he needed to fight back. "Thankfully it's a small one," Harry said as the only thing he had to compare it to in size was the basilisk, which measured over sixty feet in length. Not that he measured, he just accepted that Ron must be about right when he said that shedding had to come from a snake that size.
Now that he had a moment after disorienting the beast, Harry flicked his wand into action. "Depulso," shouting the banishing spell because like when dealing with the army of acromantula, keeping distance from your foe was paramount to not losing your nerves and would give you time to think. Since there wasn't a specific dragon repulsing spell like there was for spiders, he'd just go with a simple all-purpose spell to send the dragon back.
The horntail felt its body get thrown through the air, but it didn't have time in its flailing to catch any air and it crashed down onto the stone and rolled, scraping its talons to correct its posture.
Harry exhaled because that was definitely tougher to move than a giant spider, but he persevered. Stepping up onto a large rock so he had a better view of the arena. He knew even from just a muggle education that dragons breathed fire and he should do something about that. Pointing his wand straight up.
"Meteolojinx Eraticum," Harry shouted as a bolt of energy erupted from the tip and then a crack of thunder in the sky as the winds raced around and dark clouds formed over the arena. A second later a single drop landed on his glasses and another hit, then in the next moment a deluge of water came pouring down like they had landed in the middle of a typhoon.
Countless rain repelling charms went up around the arena and Harry watched the light dim in the area followed by a loud rumble that was not coming from the clouds above, but the dragon below that was using the darkness to blend in.
He could feel his heart pounding in his chest, threatening to burst out as the only sound of his foe was the dragging of the chain on the ground. But that didn't create a fear in his head, but excitement. There was a thrill to this fight, that he recognized from all of his previous life and death confrontation, the adrenaline pumping in his veins, bringing his senses to their full attention. Almost like the danger made him focus better.
Rolling out of the way of the large shape lunging at him, Harry stood up. Holding out his wand and raising his hand in a waving motion. "Orbis Aqua," Harry said as the rain suspended in the air before swirling into a large mass of water. He took a breath before pulling it back until the tip of his wand touched it.
"Glacius Maxima," he whispered and a wispy coolness swirled through the liquid until he turned into a solid mass.
The dragon however chose that time to let loose with its all-consuming flames. Striking the glacial mass it quickly burned up into steam that covered the cool area with a rapidly growing mist.
No one could see down in the pit except for one large dark spot that began to move, in ever shrinking circles towards its intended prey. With a roar it stood up on its hind legs and with a single flap forced all the steam to clear, revealing her next meal standing with a smirk.
Harry's hand pointed to the sky and his next words were drowned out by the enormous crack as a bolt of lightning raced down to the tips of his fingers, moving through his body until it found the exit point of his wand pointed directly at the dragon that was midway through pouncing on the wizard.
Those in the stands had to cover their eyes from the blinding light as the bolt of energy shot into the beast's chest. With a screech the dragon fell off course and crashed back onto the ground, shivering as the electricity worked its way through its body.
"Incarcerous, petrificus totalus, stupify, locomotor mortis, locomotor wibbly, immobulus," Harry burst out all the spells he knew that could incapacitate an opponent.
Taking a few deep breaths to calm himself he saw that the dragon was unable to get back up from all the spells he had struck it with. With a grin that threatened to split his face Harry ran over to the nest and grabbed his golden egg and made his way to the exit.
Crossing the threshold into the nurse's tent even the silencing charms put up wouldn't be enough to completely block out the screaming cheers from the crowd that just watched a single wizard bring down one of the most powerful creatures in their world.