Chapter Twenty Four
Harry, Severus, and his friends wandered back to the tent where the champions had first picked their dragons. His friends and Severus all said they would wait for him until he was finished, knowing that Bagman wouldn't let them in.
Harry was grateful they would be waiting for him as he went inside. Cedric smiled at him when he walked in, as did Krum.
"Vell done Harry." Viktor said, coming over to shake his hand, "I vish I had thought of flying."
Harry grinned, "Well my broom wishes that I hadn't."
"You will be able to get a new one?" Fleur asked, walking over.
Harry could see the burn marks on her skirt but she seemed otherwise all right, if a little shaken.
He nodded, "Yeah, I should be able to. Maybe not this year, but at least there is no Quidditch. Never thought I'd say that."
Cedric smirked, "I know what you mean. Well done though, Harry."
"Yes well done Harry!" Ludo beamed, walking in, "And well done to you all!" he looked so please, Harry would have thought that it was Ludo who had taken down a dragon, "Now, I'm sure you all know where you are in the tables? Well Mr Potter and Mr Krum are currently tied in First place, then it is Mademoiselle Delacour and just a few points behind, Mr Diggory! The next task will take place on the twenty fourth of February, so you've got a nice long break between now and then! Now all you need to know to prepare is inside those golden eggs you're holding. They will give you a clue and you will need to solve the clue to be able to prepare! All clear? Brilliant! Off you go."
Harry didn't need to be told twice and left the tent quickly to meet up with his friends outside, Severus had left to take a Floo call from Lily. They started up to the castle when someone jumped out at them. It was Rita Skeeter wearing rather blindingly acid-green set of robes, Quick-Quotes Quill in hand.
"Hello Harry. Brilliant job today!" She smiled, "Mind giving me a quick word? How did you feel facing the dragon? How do you feel now? Maybe about the fairness of the scoring?"
Harry didn't say anything instead waving goodbye to her and marching up to the castle with his friends.
They went up to the owlery first, where Harry wrote a long letter in very messy hand writing as quickly as he could telling his mother everything that happened, his friends wrote similar letters to their own worried parents.
Once the flock of owls had left they wondered back down stairs and headed to their separate common rooms. Draco opened the door and they were hit with the sound of a large party going on.
More of the Slytherins had come round to the idea of having Harry as a champion; now that he had done so well in the first task. Harry felt a grin spread across his face as a young first year girl pushed a butter beer into his hands and a handful of crisps.
"Well done Harry!" she grinned, "You were amazing!"
Harry opened his mouth to say thank you but she had already disappeared back into the crowd. There were still a few students not celebrating, Tracy Davis was glaring nastily at them from her homework in the corner.
"Will you quieten down?" she snapped at anyone who came close to her. They just ignored her.
Gemini and Rodolphus were also not celebrating. Rodolphus looked like he wanted to. Millicent was still sitting next to him, in the crowd of six or seven who were always crowding around them and both of them kept looking over towards the celebrating students.
Gemini however looked completely calm, as if nothing was going on. She was curled up in the chair, her long hair tumbling over her shoulder, reading a book. Corvus was conspicuous by his absence.
Harry didn't want to think about that though, he was just happy he was alive. He'd faced a fully grown dragon and won! Not only had he won, he was currently tied for first place; this was better than he ever could have hoped.
Blaise Zabini shook Harry's hand warmly and pulled him up onto the coffee table that had been pulled into the middle of the room.
"WELL DONE HARRY!" he cheered.
The partying Slytherins clapped and cheered as well. Harry held the egg up and smiled, he couldn't deny that this felt pretty good.
"Open it Harry!" Someone called,
"Yeah!"
"What's inside!"
Harry ran his nails around the grove that ran all the way around the egg and pulled it open, it was completely hollow inside but as soon as it was opened the most horrific sound escaped. The screeching and screaming filled the room, causing several people to clamp their hands over their ears.
Harry slammed the egg shut and tried to catch his breath, "What the fuck was that?!"
"Maybe it was a banshee?" Daphne said, gasping for breath, "Maybe you'll have to face one next?"
"I know, I know!" Gemini said, bouncing up and snapping her book shut, "You're going to have to fight the Cruciatus Curse. You know I know someone who is really good at those." she laughed and walked up the stairs to her dorm room.
Harry glared at her back while a small part of him worried that that would be the case.
"Don't be stupid, Lestrange, that's illegal!" a second year called to her back. Gemini didn't even turn around, simply waving goodnight over her head.
Harry enjoyed the party but he was very happy to be able to crawl into his warm, comfortable bed and sleep. He put the little miniature dragon on his bedside table and watched it walk around and make little puffs of smoke. He was going to give it to Hagrid; he'd always wanted a dragon and this one would be far less likely to burn his house down.
December came with a cold and cruel wind with sleet hammering down on the windows as the students hurried between classes. The Durmstrang students didn't seem fussed as they moved between the ship and the castle but the Beauxbatons ones were struggling.
Madam Pomfrey had had to treat all of them, at least once, for chilblains and even though they had magically made thick cloaks out of pale blue velvet and moleskin, they were still shivering though as they hurried around the grounds.
Harry couldn't exactly say he was happy as he stood in class at Care of Magical Creatures shivering against the weather. There were only ten Skrewts left as they were very fond of eating and blowing each other up but their appetites only grew as they got bigger and bigger.
"Righ' class." Hagrid said, moving to the front of the class, "We're workin' with the Skrewts again. I'm not sure if they hibernate or not so we're goin' ta settle 'em down and see. I've got these boxes 'ere for 'em so just tuck 'em in and stuff."
Harry and Draco, along with the rest of the class looked at the pile of large boxes next to the bundle of blankets and pillows.
The Skrewts were by far the ugliest things Harry had ever seen. They were now six foot long, at least, and a pale grey colour with several pairs of scuttling legs.
Harry and Draco moved over to one of the Skrewts and tried to tie a long bit of rope around their middles without getting stung or blasted.
"If I wasn't so fond of Hagrid I would be trying to drop this class at the moment." Harry hissed as he pulled his hand away from nearly getting blown off, "I hate these stupid things."
"Maybe we could sneak down and poison them?" Draco said, using his foot to try and keep the Skrewt in place.
Harry did seriously consider it for a moment before he thought about how upset Hagrid would be to wake up one morning to see them all dead in their little pen. He had been so happy when Harry had given him the little miniature dragon, Harry couldn't undo all that just to get rid of the creatures.
Harry wasn't sure how long it would last, having only been transfigured from something else but it seemed to be doing well at the moment. Hagrid had made it a little pen, and spent time cutting up tiny bits of steak for it every meal time.
Harry and Draco managed to force the Skrewt into a box where it really didn't seem like it wanted to go to sleep, Harry very much doubted that the Skrewts hibernated but he also knew that if they could get them to hibernate they would have at least two glorious months free of them.
"Well well well… doesn't this look like fun?"
Harry flinched as the sound of Rita Skeeter's voice pierced his ears. She was wearing a thick cloak in magenta and still clutching her crocodile skin clutch bag.
"Who're you?" Hagrid asked as he stopped a Skrewt from blasting as student, withering a nearby pumpkin instead.
Rita Skeeter beamed at him, "Rita Skeeter. I write for the Daily Prophet."
"Thought Dumbledore said you weren' allowed inside the school any more?" he frowned at her.
Rita Skeeter ignored him, "What exactly are these fascinating creatures?" she said beaming even more widely.
"Blast-Ended Skrewts." Hagrid mumbled.
Rita looked very interested and fluttered her eyelashes at Hagrid, "Really? I've never heard of them before… where do they come from?"
Harry noticed that Hagrid was starting to blush, he mumbled something and moved away. Harry felt dread rising inside him, where had Hagrid gotten them from? Hermione and Draco seemed to be thinking the same thing.
"I think they're really interesting don't you?" Draco shouted across to the box where Hermione was working.
"Oh yeah. They're great. What do you think Harry?" Hermione smiled.
Harry nodded, "Yep...umm… never have a boring lesson that's for sure."
Rita Skeeter's eyes grew wide at the sight of Harry, "Oh you're in this class!"
She walked quickly over and took Harry's arm, moving him away from Draco slightly, "So Harry, you like Care of Magical Creatures?"
Harry nodded, he was very aware of her Quick-Quotes Quill floating just behind her and didn't want to say anything that could possibly be twisted. Even with his silence the quill was still writing furiously.
"Yeah, yes I really enjoy Care of Magical Creatures." Harry said.
"Lovely." Rita said, she gazed back to Hagrid, "Have you been teaching long?" her gaze moved to where most of the class were hiding in Hagrid's hut, noses pressed against the glass to see if the coast was clear.
Hagrid shook his head, "It's only me second year."
Rita nodded, Harry could see her thinking things through, her eyes glinting, "I don't suppose you would be willing to give an interview? You see the Daily Prophet has a zoological column, every Wednesday, as I'm sure you know. We could feature these...um… Bang-Ended Scoots."
Hagrid beamed, "Blast-Ended Skrewts. Yeah. Yeah why not?"
Harry wished he could tell Hagrid how much of a bad idea this was but Rita Skeeter was watching him still and the quill was still scratching away. He had no choice but to go back over to Draco and watch as Hagrid and Rita Skeeter made arrangements to meet up and have the interview.
She waved goodbye to the class and walked back towards Hogsmead smiling broadly.
"Hagrid!" Harry sighed, "Listen, she's going to twist everything you say! She can't be trusted."
He was about to say something else when the bell rang to call them back into the castle. Hagrid seemed very distracted anyway and wasn't really listening. Harry, Draco and Hermione sighed and moved away.
"I'm so angry at her!" Hermione fumed as they trudged back up through the snow.
"I just hope that Hagrid hasn't done something stupid and imported those things illegally. She'd have a field day getting to write that one up!" Draco said through gritted teeth.
Harry was very glad when he could fall into his chair by the fire that night and get out his homework; it seemed to be growing far more quickly than he could get through it.
"Harry, don't suppose you want a break from all that?" Draco said.
Harry nodded, "Yeah why?"
Draco held up a large parcel, "Petal wants this to get to Dobby. She was hoping to come and visit but has been too busy. To be honest, she gets very panicked when she has to leave the Manor without Mother or Father."
Harry nodded, "Yeah that would be good. Hold on a second." he raced upstairs and grabbed the Marauders Map before coming back downstairs, "Lets see where Hermione is. She's really interested in House elves and it would be good to see them happy."
Draco frowned, "Why wouldn't they be happy?"
Harry sighed, "She saw Winky at the World Cup and, well, Mr Crouch didn't treat her very well.
Draco nodded and huddled over the map so no one else could see what they were doing. Harry tapped the map with his wand,
"I solemnly swear I am up to no good." Harry whispered.
The map filled with lines and tiny moving dots.
"Library or common room?" Draco suggested.
It was still early in the day so there were a lot of students and teachers moving around making it very difficult to find one person.
They did find Hermione's tiny dot though, sitting in the library. Daphne and Pansy were with her and Viktor Krum was nearby Harry noticed.
They cleared the map and headed out to the library. Madam Pince glared at them as they walked over to the table that Hermione, Pansy and Daphne were sitting at.
"Hello." Harry smiled, bringing them out of their studying world.
Hermione smiled back, "Hi."
There was a loud giggle from a group of girls nearby as one of them was spotted by Krum. Hermione rolled her eyes.
"I was wondering if you wanted to come to the kitchens with us?" Draco asked.
"Get to meet some House elves?" Harry grinned.
Hermione looked down at the homework before her, thinking. There was another squeal from the nearby group of girls and Hermione gritted her teeth.
"Yep." She said, she shook her bushy hair and stuffed her books into her bag, "Why can't he read on his stupid ship?" she mumbled.
"What do you mean?" Draco asked.
"Viktor keeps coming to the library to study, and whenever he does the group of screaming fan girls comes with him." Daphne explained.
"Why isn't he on his ship?" Harry asked.
Pansy and Daphne grinned at each other, Hermione blushed slightly.
Pansy shrugged, "Well it's strange really, he only ever seems to be here when Hermione is."
"So House elves?" Hermione said, standing up and glaring down at Daphne and Pansy who were still smirking.
Harry was still slightly confused but didn't mention anything as they wound down the corridors and to the kitchens.