"And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how you fight a dragon!" Bagman roared over his microphone, sounding as if Christmas had been announced early. "Our youngest champion, not only the quickest to get the egg, but also the best! If there was anyone who doubted the abilities of the boy-who-lived, they are surely rethinking their stance after that performance!"
The moment he was free from the dragon, Harry shrugged off the cloak and tried to regain his breath. As he watched the dragon tamers attempt to subdue the furious Horntail, Professors Flitwick, McGonagall, Moody and Hagrid hurried over to him.
"That was fantastic, Potter!" Flitwick cried out, seemingly overjoyed with emotion.
"We always knew you were skilful, Potter, but my word. Never have I seen such exemplary prowess. I doubt even the Headmaster could've done better, let alone when he was your age." McGonagall added proudly, beaming. It shocked him to see the normally inscrutable woman being so visibly emotional. "You'll need to see Madam Pomfrey before the judges give out the scores however."
"Yeh did it, Harry! Yeh did it! An' agains' the Hortail an' all, yeh know, Charlie said that was the wors' o' 'em all, but tha' didn' stop yeh, did it!" Hagrid said hoarsely.
"Thank you." Harry replied happily.
"Good show, Potter. Good to see Albus wasn't lying about your skills." Moody growled.
"Right then, Potter, first-aid tent, please…"
"Dragons!" Pomphrey spat in a disgusted tone, pulling Harry over to a free bed. "Any pain or damage?" She asked even as she began scanning him, pausing only briefly over his damaged arm, which had lost its illusion the moment he had worn the cloak.
"Cold mostly, other than that, I'm fine." Harry answered honestly.
"Cold… after being bathed in dragon fire?" She asked speculatively.
"Well, the way I battled the fire was by rapidly cooling the air around me, so…" He explained, omitting the use of the cloak. While it had been allowed by the Goblet, the judges could still deem it as cheating if they knew it was the reason for his success.
"So you experienced a fairly dramatic shift in temperature, hence your apparent cold." She finished, nodding in understanding. "Not to worry, we'll fix you right up."
After a moment of rummaging around in a large cupboard, she returned with a green tinted potion. "Drink every last drop, then sit and wait for at least five minutes. If your cold chill doesn't let up during that time, call for me immediately."
With that, she bustled off to deal with Diggory. Lying back and letting out a sigh of relief, Harry noticed a turquoise magical signature sneak into the tent, clearly under the effect of a notice-not.
"Hello Daphne." He greeted happily once she drew close enough, earning an annoyed huff from the girl as she dropped the spell. Harry noticed her normally sky blue eyes were bloodshot, as if she had been crying recently. Considering she was normally very meticulous about her appearance, along with a fairly tight control over her emotions, Harry wondered what had caused her to be so visibly upset.
"You didn't die then." She stated playfully.
"I told you I wasn't going to die. Something as simple as a dragon isn't going to change that."
"Actually, you said there was a good chance you would die." She pointed out shakily. "I thought you had died when you just stood there and let yourself get engulfed in fire."
"Well, as you can see, the fire never even touched me. Trust me, if I hadn't been positive I was going to survive then I would've gotten out of the way. Besides, I was drawing a small amount of power from the crowd's reaction, I needed to do something dramatic to get enough power to beat the dragon." Harry explained softly, taking her hands in his comfortingly.
"What… empathkinesis? You can draw power from emotions?" She demanded
"Not normally, today was a special occasion. I certainly can't do it at a whim, besides the power has… side effects. Today was basically the perfect opportunity to use it, but most of the time there simply is not enough intense positive emotions nearby to risk it."
"If you insist, now come on, they're about to give out your scores!"
"Okay, okay. Hey, would you mind carrying this for me?" He asked casually, holding out the dementor cloak. Shrugging, she took the cloak and folded it over one of her arms, seemingly oblivious to its freezing nature.
"Every judge gives a mark out of ten, but Karkaroff has been fairly biased." Daphne explained as they stood outside the first-aid tent.
The first to score was Madam Maxime, who gave him a 9. Crouch was next with a 10, who was followed by Dumbledore then Bagman, both of whom also gave a 10. By now, the crowd was roaring appreciatively. Finally Karkaroff raised his wand, before pausing and taking a look at the cheering crowd.
It was not just Hogwarts students that were pleased, even the students dressed in Beauxbatons blue and Durmstrang red were cheering his score, along with the numerous visitors. Seemingly also taking that in, Karkaroff sent up a 7, earning him deafening boos from the hyped up crowd.
"You won, Harry! Krum's in second and he only got 40 points." Daphne announced excitedly, even going as far as to hug him for a few seconds.
Before Harry could comment, one of the dragon handlers jogged over, his long ginger hair streaming behind him.
"Hey Harry, I'm Charlie Weasley, I'm told you know my brothers." The man greeted, holding out a calloused hand that Harry shook. "You were unbelievable, never seen anyone withstand dragon fire like that. Although, I'd suggest doing something different if you encounter a dragon in the wild, all you managed was getting it angry. Anyway, they told me to tell you you've got to hang around for a few more minutes… Bagman wants word, back in the champions' tent."
Inside the tent, Fleur and Krum seemed unharmed, but Diggory had half his face covered in thick orange burn cream.
"Well done, all of you!" Ludo Bagman said, bouncing into the tent. He explained how the golden egg they had retrieved contained a clue for the second task. "All clear?"
"Just one thing," Harry interrupted. "Obviously we were only allowed a wand for this task, is that the same for the second task or…?"
"An excellent question. Like this task, you may only start with your wand, however there is nothing stopping you from either summoning or creating further magical items once the task has begun. Just keep in mind, the more time spent creating is less time completing the task."
With that done, Harry left the tent and met up with Daphne again, along with Ron, Neville and surprisingly Gilderoy Lockhart.
"Brilliant Harry, you were brilliant!" Neville praised excitedly.
"Yeah mate, you were scarily good. No wonder you always win our duels, ey?" Ron added, nudging Harry with his elbow.
"Indeed, it was the most impressive battle." Lockhart agreed "But, it is important you don't waste it. Everyone in the world has tuned in to watch you survive dragon fire and manage to overpower a dragon. Now is your time to address them all, even if it's only a brief statement."
Nodding, they all began walking up to the castle, Ron giving a play by play of the other champions' attempts. They were interrupted when Rita leapt out from behind a tree.
"You didn't need to set an ambush, you know, I'm quite happy to give an interview." Harry called out, causing a faint blush to appear on Rita's face.
Pretending like she didn't hear him, she strolled up to the group "Congratulations, Harry! I wonder if you could give me a quick word? How you felt facing that dragon? How you feel now about the fairness of the scoring?"
"I can give you a quick word now, but I am quite tired from that performance so I will have to be quick. If you would like a longer interview we can talk tomorrow. In short, aside from the fact I was facing a dragon, I had faith in my abilities. As you saw, that faith was not misplaced. As for the scoring, I can't complain, first place is nothing to scoff at after all."
"Excellent, that will do quite nicely." Rita purred, looking satisfied.
They were stopped again when Justin Finch-Fletchley ran up to them.
"Hey, Harry! I just wanted to say, I'm sorry about what happened after you got chosen. We didn't mean for it to come off like we were trying to attack you, we were just so happy that a Ravenclaw had gotten chosen that we overreacted. If you can see it in you to forgive us, then we're probably going to be throwing a party…"
Harry regarded Justin for a moment. Aside from Hermione, the boy had been his friend for the longest amount of time. But despite this, he had never felt like the two clicked. The whole thing had come to a close when it had taken a while for Harry to even realise Justin believed he had entered his own name.
"I think I can understand them, I also shouldn't have been so harsh, it's just everyone was simply pressuring me at the wrong time and I snapped. But, I still can't bring myself to forgive them, or you. You can tell them I won't mind if they party, I doubt they'll be the only ones, but I won't be joining them." Harry replied, trying to be as sympathetic as possible.
"I… I see. I guess I'll see you around then, Harry." Justin replied sadly, heading back to the dragon enclosure.
There was an awkward silence amongst the group after that, until Daphne walked up and bumped him with her shoulder.
"You'll never abandon one of us like that, will you?" She asked softly.
"Me and Justin's friendship was abandoned years ago, it just took me this long to realise. In the future, me and Justin may become good friends again, I certainly wouldn't be opposed to that. So, to answer your question, I will never end our friendships on bad terms. If I had it my way, I'd never lose anyone as a friend, but I refuse to keep people if they don't want to be with me."
It was clear that wasn't the answer Daphne wanted, no doubt she wanted him to say they'd be friends forever. But Harry knew that wasn't possible, he couldn't promise something he couldn't guarantee. That didn't mean he couldn't do something to keep their friendship going for as long as possible.
"Besides, I have no desire to end our friendship anytime soon." He added, drawing a smile from the girl.
By the time they reached his room, Ron had left to go spend time with his brother Charlie.
"Go on then, Harry. What's in the egg?" Neville asked, indicating the golden egg Harry had been carrying.
Shrugging, Harry opened it up, before instantly closing it the moment when a horrifically loud and screechy wailing filled the room. For a frantic moment, Harry wondered if it had been the cry of a mandrake, before realising if that had been true, all of them would've died on the spot.
"What was that?" Daphne demanded.
"Sounds like a mandrake." Lockhart announced, trying to sound wise. "I encountered one once, on my way through Australia."
"That wasn't a mandrake. To start with, adult mandrakes have deeper voices. Also, there are no wild mandrakes in Australia, they don't survive in the extreme climate over there." Neville retorted passionately, before losing his confidence and weakly saying "Sounds like somebody being tortured to me, maybe your have to fight off the Cruciatus."
"Don't be silly, Neville. The Tournament can't get away with torturing someone. Obviously that was Mermish." Luna replied, patting Neville's shoulder sympathetically.
"How do you know Mermish?" Daphne asked, amazed.
"I tried to learn it when we went to the Caribbean and looked for the mermaids. I had been hoping to talk to them when we found them."
"And did you get to speak to them?" Daphne replied sarcastically.
"Unfortunately not. Firstly I discovered it is hard to learn Mermish without someone to learn from. Secondly, they were too far down to be able to hear me."
"Luna, there are no mermaids in the Caribbean. They have been a myth for centuries, yet nobody has seen them!" Daphne argued
"Actually, they are real. I went with her and saw the mermaids myself, but they have really good camouflage, along with being at practically the bottom of the ocean." Harry replied.
Struck speechless, Daphne did not seem inclined to respond.
"So, what did the egg say?" Lockhart asked Luna
"Oh, I have no idea. I think that was in British Mermish, I only learned Haitian Mermish. Completely different language." Luna explained, as if it should've been obvious.
"I'm sure I'll figure it out, besides I've still got 3 months to work it out." With that said, Harry carefully put the egg away, so as to not get distracted. He and his friends enjoyed the rest of the day together, with Lockhart leaving after a while, to go on a tour of America, hoping to drum up publicity for his upcoming book.
As dusk settled on the school, Luna yawned and stated "I think I'll go to bed now, see you all in the morning."
"I can walk you back, if you want." Harry offered.
"Thank you Harry, but I wouldn't want you to go out of your way for me like that."
"Well, I could walk with you, the Ravenclaw common room is roughly on route to the Gryffindor one from here." Neville replied, getting a bright smile from Luna.
"I would like that very much, well good night you two."
Once the two left, Harry turned to Daphne and raised his eyebrows "That was weird."
"Agreed, I can't help feeling like Luna set that up, but whether that was to leave us alone… or to get herself alone with Neville." Daphne speculated. "Although, I did want to talk to you about something. A while ago we talked about me learning the Animagus transformation…"
"Oh! Oh yes, I am so sorry, that completely slipped my mind! What with the Tournament and everything, I forgot to message my friend. But, because I'm a champion, I don't think I'll have time to devote to helping you this year." Harry replied
"Well, how much help do you think I need? Surely I could handle most of it by myself, while you are busy with your own stuff?"
"You certainly could, but if you still want to help me with my research into the animagus transformation that won't work. You see, with your permission, I'd like to learn legilimency so I'll be able to see your thought process as you go through with the self discovery ritual and transformation. I can't force you to agree of course, and I'd help you regardless, but…"
"You'd want to view my mind as I go through the process? I'd assume I wouldn't even be able to keep you from seeing stuff in my mind, since you'd need to see the whole mind, I know I certainly would in your place… But you said if you do learn the process, you'd possibly be able to improve it?" She mused
"I'm fairly sure. I'm hoping there's a part of the brain which 'stores' the animal. If I can determine where it is, I can try and view the same spot in another animagus' mind. If that works and it is universal, I would be able to make something to overlap that spot, giving the user a choice of animal." Harry explained, having spent several nights thinking about it even before Daphne had suggested herself as a volunteer.
"Can I get back to you on that? Being able to change into multiple forms is definitely appealing, but I'm not sure I currently trust you to have that type of access… Can you even do Legilimency?"
"Currently? No." Harry laughed "But, I'm hoping given my Occlumency it won't be hard to learn. When you tried to use Legilimency on me, the room I trapped you in was technically localised Legilimency. Anyway, you can take as long as you need. If you decide you don't want to be my test subject in this, I'll still help you with the process. For now, I can get you a few books on becoming an animagus."
"That would be a huge help. Thanks for being so understanding."
"Anytime. Funnily enough, there was also something I wanted to ask. So, obviously I've noticed your affinity and dependence on ice based magic, but I wasn't sure why. But then, today I asked you to carry my cloak, remember? Well, despite how rude that was, I was sort of testing you. You see, that cloak came from a dementor, meaning it has a really intense cold aura. I can't even hold it for long without getting frostbite.
"You carried it all the way up here without any complaint, with both yourself and your magic being immune to the cloak's effect. Then there's the fact Snape brought you in to help experiment on the Dementor Ash. While I could relate that to both your father's connections and your skill in potions, I'm sure Snape already has similar connections while there are definitely students in older years with more skill than either of us.
"That suggests to me that there is something else at play. You already know I was already working with Snape to begin with, along with it technically being my Ash, but you were new. You also have an affinity for ice magic, immunity to the Dementor's cloak and were brought in specifically to help work with the Dementor's Ash."
"So what are you saying?" Daphne asked guardedly.
"I'm not saying anything, if I'm right I'm certainly not going to say anything. But, while I have never met your family, I did a bit of digging myself and the terms 'Ice Magic' and Greengrass family show up far too often to be coincidence. To me, this indicates whatever magic is at play is genetic. Well, that eliminates a natural affinity on your part.
"That also removes the possibility of pure talent, potions or enchantment. It is unlikely to be any creature heritage seeing as your magical signature is entirely human, which would be impossible given your ice based talents. Then you have the possibility of it being your family's boon, but if that were true I'd imagine at least one of your ancestors would've let slip your ice powers.
"The fact your family clearly keeps it quiet suggests it wouldn't be approved off. As we've already removed the possibility of creature ancestry, that leaves some type of permanent ritual. Again, it must be something the other Houses wouldn't approve of, especially in the past. So we can scratch blood rituals, along with sacrificial rituals. While those are banned in modern times, they were quite common in the olden days.
"So, to the best of my knowledge, that just leaves some kind of Shamanic ritual. From there, it could be anything from Fae to Divine, but I don't know enough to tell it apart from that."
"Is this pay back for me figuring out your mithril?" Daphne asked wryly, looking more amused than angry.
"But yes, you are mostly correct. Some time before the Romans invaded Britain, one of my ancestors, Kaireus, decided it was a good idea to summon a Fae and make a deal. The ice fairy would bless our family with its magic, in return every seventh child would be sacrificed. Apparently the plan had been to simply not have seven children, ensuring there was no child to be sacrificed, which seemed to work… But then after the birth of Kaireus' grandchild, the child began to develop an unstoppable blood curse."
"Am I correct in assuming the grandchild was the seventh Greengrass?" Harry asked quietly.
"You are, not that we were called Greengrass then… Since then, every seventh Greengrass has been cursed, most die before they're 20 years old. That's part of the reason why my family had invested so heavily in different areas of magic, such as my father's obsession with healing potions, which he inherited from my grandfather."
"Where… where are you in the order?" Harry hesitantly asked, dreading the answer.
"I'm sixth… My sister was the seventh." Daphne answered miserably.
"Wow… that sucks. My condolences for your sister." Harry murmured apologetically.
"There are no condolences to give, she's not dead and won't be for a very long time. Not if there's anything I have to say about it." Daphne snapped back aggressively.
"Right, of course… is there anything I can do to help?"
"No… no. My family's been looking for two millennia, you'd need to be nothing short of Merlin to fix her- Wait, do you think your mithril would work?" She demanded, cutting herself off mid sentence.
"I honestly don't know, I'm not sure how my mithril reacts to Fae magic… But if I could have a look, I'd have a better chance of saying. Just… just don't get your hopes up too much, I have no idea if I'll even be able to see anything."
"Right, Astoria, sit here and stay still for a while." Daphne demanded a week later, placing her sister in a specially chosen chair in Harry's workshop. For the event, he had temporarily changed the room so that there appeared to be an ordinary classroom instead of the normal broom closet, preventing Astoria Greengrass from discovering his actual room.
"Will you tell me what's going on now?" Astoria demanded crossly, glaring at first her sister then at Harry.
"I will when it's over, just for now, all you need to know is Harry's going to be looking at you for a while. But don't worry, you'll be fine." Daphne reassured her.
"So, one last time, Potter, run me through what you will be doing?" Snape instructed from under their privacy bubble. As both girl's head of house, along with being extremely knowledgeable in curses, Harry had convinced Daphne to bring the man in, so long as he swore to keep it quiet unless someone's life was in danger.
"I will be using my mage sight to inspect first her magic then her body, in the hope I can discover what exactly her curse is. I will not be trying to mess with it, or even attempt to remove it until I have been cleared by both yourself, her father and Madam Pomphrey." Harry intoned for the fourth time, getting an approving nod from the man.
"Good, then you have my permission to begin. Just remember, most professional curses have anti-tampering spells that will kill the host if it feels it is being attacked. This is not a game of Operation, where you can start over if you get it wrong." Snape replied.
Nodding, Harry lowered the privacy bubble and approached the two Greengrass sisters. "Hello Astoria, if you didn't already know, I'm Harry Potter. I just need you to stay as still as possible for a few minutes while I check something over."
Pulling his own chair over, Harry positioned himself so that he was at eye level, then let himself fall out of his body and float above the mithril. It was normally impossible for his 'being' to exist outside of either his body or mithril, but within his workshop there was enough passive magic he was able to maintain a spirit form.
This gave him the benefit of complete control over his sight, since he had no eyes to see for him. Shutting off his standard vision, he let his mage sight dominate his vision. With a huge force of mind, he then began systematically shutting off different signatures.
It was incredibly difficult to keep each signature muted, so that it became invisible to him, but once he had gotten it under control his mithrilium kept them hidden. Now, with his own green, Daphne's turquoise and Snape's dark blue hidden, all he could see was Astoria's azure signature.
To start with, he then temporarily hid Astoria's magic from his sight, leaving him entirely blind. With that plan of revealing the curse foiled, he let her magic back into sight and carefully examined her magic. After the initial investigation revealed nothing extraordinary, Harry began to meticulously examine her signature's symbols.
As he had feared, the answer was similar to Filch's prior squib issues, in that the symbols that made up the human form had been tampered with. With Astoria, this change was around her heart, which added an additional ring that were superimposed over the prior symbols.
Making out the original ring was impossible, simply due to how beyond him they were. He could identify enough to say they had something to do with the witch's magic, but that was as far as he could go. The second ring was far simpler, with several symbols Harry recognised as ice runes. Then there was a rune for sacrifice, linked with several symbols he was incapable of comprehending.
With the target found, Harry forced himself back into his body, while lifting the block on his magesight.
"Well, I've succeeded." Harry announced as he tried to regain his vision. The problem with removing his spirit from his body for extended periods was that it took a while to readjust when he returned to his body.
"Can you cure her?" Daphne murmured.
"I'm not sure. I'll have to look at your magic too, just to ensure I have the right thing."
"Anything." Daphne announced solemnly, kicking Astoria out of the chair and taking it herself.
"Perhaps you should take a moment to rest, Potter. You've never tried to do this so long, especially twice." Snape warned.
"I'll be fine, it will only take a moment." Harry replied, already falling back into a relaxed state.
Now that he knew where to look, it took a fraction of the time, identifying the exact same ring around Daphne's heart. The only difference was that while there had been emphasis on Astoria's sacrifice symbol, Daphne's symbol was more subdued. Returning to his body, Harry nodded once at Daphne.
"I think the way to cure Astoria is to remove her Fae boon. If she doesn't get the ice magic, she shouldn't get the sacrifice. But, the most pressing matter is I'm not sure if that will remove the family sacrifice. For all I know, the boon is powered by the sacrifice, so it may demand another in her place.
"The second problem is I am fairly confident that even if it doesn't require a new sacrifice, Astoria will never get the boon back. That will also extend to her children and future descendants, they would never get the curse, but they also wouldn't get the boon."
"That's fine. I'm pants at the ice magic stuff anyway, so I am not losing anything of note. Not that the ice magic is worth my life anyway." Astoria chimed in.
"Excellent. I'd suggest you two begin to write a letter to your father. I will also be sending him a missive, since as a Greengrass problem, this is clearly something we must bring Lord Greengrass into the fold. For now, I would suggest putting this matter out of mind. Unless your life is in immediate danger, Mr. Potter does not currently have the legal right to attempt to solve your blood curse. As such, you will not bug him about your curse."
While I am 2 days early (Almost 1 day), Merry Christmas everyone. I would love to say I timed this perfectly, but it was a complete accident that today happened to be a chapter day.
I'm just upset I was unable to get up to the Yule Ball, but I got my booster jab last week, which knocked my out for my normal writing day, basically halving how much I was able to write.
Things I think need explaining:
- Empathkinesis: As far as I can see, I have basically made this word up. It seemed like the best word to describe the Dementor's effect, where they literally draw power from people's emotions. If anyone has a better name, feel free to suggest it.
- Just getting the dragon angry: As Charlie says, Harry vs the Dragon was deliberately visually amazing, but despite all of that, the dragon wasn't actually defeated. If they had been in the wild, both Krum and Fleur would've survived while Harry and Cedric would've most likely died.
- Caribbean Mermaids: It hasn't been said yet, but I do want to confirm that the giant mermaids in the Caribbean are different from the Merpeople in the black lake.
- The Greengrass Fae: A fairly minor fairy, who specialised in Ice magic. Because of the deal, the Greengrass' gained the fairy's ice magic, which will always give them the ability to be better at ice magic than the average wizard.
- Harry blocking signatures: That is a fairly new development, although he has been blocking Hogwarts signature for a while, which was first mentioned on his first night in Hogwarts. This is just the logical extreme. He can only block the signature for himself, so in the real world the actual magic is completely unaffected, along with being impossible to detect.