12th February 1995 - Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Glencoe Highlands, Scotland.
Weeks had passed since his first transformation into his animagus form and their discovery that he was in fact a living horcrux for the British Dark Lord, the self titled Lord Voldemort. And to say that he had been feeling a little wary that morning with the second Tri-Wizard task about to be underway, would have been a gross understatement, Harry thought.
Though it wasn't particularly surprising given the last time he had ventured out into the Forbidden Forest he and Ron had nearly ended up as dinner for an enormous colony of acromantula.
Something that still gave poor Ron the most horrible nightmares.
Though given the fact they had been an entire twelve years old at the time, the level of lingering trauma wasn't particularly surprising. Especially since Ron had already suffered from arachnophobia prior to their nearly disastrous jaunt into the forest.
Although, that said, Harry had felt the ripe old age of fourteen wasn't much better. A thought he had shared with Sirius and Remus to mixed results.
Mostly what he got back was tales of their own forest bound exploits and some tips on what plants he should avoid and which ones could be finagled into place for use in some form of mischief or another.
Needless to say, he had taken copious mental notes.
The last couple of weeks had been exhausting though, aside from odd moments of brevity that everyone in the know tried for with wildly fluctuating degrees of success.
They had spent most of their time poring through their combined book collections looking for any bit of information they might have already had on hand. Which unsurprisingly had turned out to be a small stack of books from the Black library, though most of those had only contained a mention or two or some oblique reference to some other rogue wizard or estranged family member.
A family member whose entire space on the family tapestry had been rendered down to blackened ash and burnt edges.
The Prophet had been a continued source of bamboozled looks and huffed comments.
Particularly when it was revealed in bold print that it had been the late British Ministers own secretary that had done him in. Despite all the thinly veiled insinuations some journalists - that would remain nameless - had slipped in a time or two, implying that Harry himself might have had something to do with it.
Snape whispered hints that it wouldn't be surprising if he did, powerful as he was and with all the failed attempts at negotiations.
Attempts that Madam Bones' official letter had explained as having been intentionally sabotaged by the self same Undersecretary that had poisoned her boss with a muggle toxin of all things. All the while announcing, upon being confronted by the investigating aurors that she had been doing her duty for Queen and country.
Protecting their world from an invading threat.
What that threat was, hadn't been explicitly covered. Either in an official letter of apology or in the paper but the implication was so strong it probably could have taken part in the tournament.
Granted the next day the Prophet had run a piece the following day that seemed heavily intent on reminding everyone of Harry's many achievements. The least of which seemed to now be his oldest title as 'The Boy-Who-Lived'.
It had been so terribly obvious a fluff piece meant to appease him and whatever imagined ire he held towards Britain, that Sirius had made a joke about buying a couple of copies to stuff pillows with.
Harry hadn't been entirely sure how he wanted to deal with the whole situation - or if he wanted to touch it at all - so he had settled for jotting an open letter to Wizarding Great Britain as a whole, assuring them in a roundabout fashion that Volstar had no intentions of holding a grudge against the region for the actions of one clearly disturbed woman.
His letter to Madam Bones and the British Wizengamot had been longer and included more flowery language, but in essence had said the same thing. Plus a very politely worded suggestion that they might consider an inquiry into better mental health care to help prevent similarly troubled souls from suffering in anonymity in the future.
Sirius had proof read the letters and given the young king a rather amused side-eyed glance and made a quiet, though amused comment that perhaps the Sorting Hat hadn't been too far off the mark when it considered Harry for Slytherin.
Harry still hadn't been entirely sure how he felt about that particular comment, even months after he had stopped thinking so poorly of the old Hogwarts House.
He did have some good news though, he had taken the time to write to the leaders of both the Japanese and Egyptian magical communities and had received a positive response back to his request for an educational visit.
He had yet to hear back from India but he hadn't been worried. The goblins had warned him ahead of time that of the communities he was attempting to contact, India in particular tended to spend quite a while giving each foreign request put to them a great deal of consideration before offering back any form of response.
Which meant that as soon as he was done with the second task, with everything still progressing smoothly and on schedule back in Skyfall, Harry would be able to travel again and start asking the questions he needed to.
Which brought him back to the glorified scavenger hunt that was apparently the second task.
Their goal for the task was to head into the Forbidden forest, secure viable potion ingredients without falling prey to the dangers within it and then successfully craft a potion with the ingredients they recovered.
The task had been split down into two parts, with a small break between the two for spectators to take a break while the champions had any minor injuries cared for.
Along with that titbit of information was the general understanding that any champion that fell to the dangers of the forest would therefore be unable to participate in the second half of the event. Effectively halving their potential points.
Being tested was not only their ability to recognise and handle potentially volatile plants and beasts, but their ability to navigate in a hostile environment. And to top it off their skill in handling those raw ingredients and rendering them into a functional potion.
Somehow, Harry had been sure Snape loved the fact that he had been dragged in - along with the resident potion professors of both Beauxbatons and Durmstrang - to review both the ingredients and the end result.
Severus Snape, strong armed into participating in any way while literally thousands of people spread across several countries watched on?
He was going to be an absolute treat to deal with, Harry knew.
Shaking off the thought and turning his attention more fully to the task at hand, the young king contemplated the potions he had learned and the potential ingredients the forest might play home to. He had learned far more since leaving Hogwarts than he had during his three years as a student.
Though really that hadn't been much of a surprise considering the constraints the school was under in regards to what age students learned which thing and even whether they had access to sufficient resources to facilitate the lesson. Being able to source enough phoenix tears, for example, to try - and mostly inevitably fail - to teach dozens of students each year how to brew a single potion that called on them as a required ingredient was frankly untenable.
Add to that, the fact that he could pore over and absorb information in a fraction of a speed of even the fastest speed readers meant that he had a significant leg up when it came to memorising recipes and theory.
He had no idea if the Tri-Wizard Tournament organisers had added foreign beasts and plants to the forest for the duration of the second task, or if they had actually given some thought to preserving the delicate eco-system of the forest and had refrained from doing so. Which meant that aside from a handful of native species, he had no way of knowing for certain just what could be found within.
Harry looked away from the forest to peek down at his arms, double checking the straps of the rune inscribed crystals tied to them. Positioned to face outward, away from his body they would 'watch' and broadcast anything that occurred to the left and right of him as if seen by a human eye to the linked screens. The same applied to the crystals that were centered front and back of his torso, allowing viewers to see everything he could see and anything that came up behind him.
The other three champions were wearing the same arrangement after they had all rigorously tested them to make sure they wouldn't impede their ability to cast and move about when it mattered.
It had taken him and Sirius almost every free moment of the past week to get them all done and properly working in synchronised pattern with the crystal viewing screens. But it seemed just about the only way they could allow spectators to watch the event without staring at the edge of the forest or the tops of the trees for the hour or so they had for this first part of the task.
The second half of the event had been carefully set up in the arena they had used for the first task, albeit with a proper level floor put in so they at least wouldn't need to worry about taking a misstep into a chasm.
Although, that might appeal to some people. Harry thought.
Due to the danger of the forest and the fact that they already had a perfectly suitable place to view the spectacle, rather than try to construct multiple spots for spectator seating they had opted to keep everyone that wasn't vital to the event seated in that first arena.
The inclusion of Harry's real time viewing crystal arrays meant that people no longer had to jockey for better views, that they could all stay seated out of the way, and more importantly well away from danger.
Which had been an interesting sort of thought process given how close they had been a couple of months ago to some very angry dragons. Though he had supposed given the warding could be focused very specifically on impeding fire and dragons specifically.
If they went by that sort of logic, then there were too many species in the Forbidden Forest to accurately cover them all. Since the wards that were being used were rather basic in form, even if they had been fed a fair amount of power.
To one side of the clearing that served as the outskirts of the forest, Madam Hooch sat comfortably astride her broom, facing off in the direction of the arena, waiting for the flare that would signal that they were supposed to begin the task and enter the forest.
Given how long they had already been waiting someone was obviously having a great deal of fun giving whatever speech they thought was vitally important to share with everyone.
On one hand Harry was eager to get underway. The sooner started, the sooner finished.
Or something like that.
On the other hand though, it did give him more time to think on the appearance of ex-auror Alastor 'Mad-Eye' Moody who had been stationed at the forest's edge and was one of the adults charged with rescuing the champions in the event they ran into something they couldn't deal with.
An attempt to enact a landmark historic event of zero sapient deaths during the tournament.
He would believe that possible when he saw it, given the apparent lack of forethought he had already witnessed.
Though, the fact that the Moody was the real one - who apparently had been ambushed and stuffed in his own trunk for harvesting according to the letter Dumbledore had sent Harry - and not the supposedly dead Death Eater son of Lord Crouch…
Well, Harry had some pretty mixed feelings regarding placing his potential well being in the hands that had spent nearly half a year as a prisoner of a 'dead' man he had apparently been originally responsible for seeing jailed.
What little bit of information had been missing from the letter the old headmaster had sent him in follow up to the suspicions Harry had shared with him and McGonagall had been almost eagerly filled in by a combination of Sirius and Goldhammer, who had been visiting his office when the letter arrived.
But the story meant that two people had - by very different means - escaped from a jail that the British Ministry historically claimed to be inescapable.
It certainly meant he himself would be putting much more thought into the jails that would inevitably need to be built on Volstar. As much as he would like to think they would have no need of them and the current lack of crime would continue on as the population continued to slowly but steadily rise...He was more of a realist than that.
But that was a thought best saved for another day.
Catching movement out of the corner of his eye, Harry turned his focus up to Madam Hooch who had reached down to lift her whistle from where it had been dangling from its chain against her chest.
With one shrill blow of the silver whistle he was off into the forest and knew the other three teens would be moving just as quickly.
He knew courtesy of Hogwarts: A History, which had a chapter detailing the history and general composition of the forest, that very few of the plants that were usable as ingredients grew close to the edge of the forest with its greater access to full sunlight. Instead he would have to head deeper.
He worked on keeping his footsteps light, like Sirius had taught him and tried to keep as much to visible and open patches of ground to avoid stepping on anything that might hold a grudge.
As it was he was perhaps ten minutes into his trek into the forest when he started taking note of the plants and creature trails, back where even thrill seeking students and the cursory patrols of professors didn't often tread.
It meant the area was less likely to be disturbed from external forces and Harry doubted anyone but Snape and Hagrid came this far into the forest. Though, he supposed Dumbledore might on occasion if he needed to speak to the centaur tribe that called the forest home.
In decent succession Whisperweed, Billingsroot, Moly, Dittany and a few other choice plants made their way into a conjured case, each compartment carefully sized and separated to make sure they weren't able to interact. They tended to grow in shared environments so it made finding them individually a more difficult task if you were particularly worried about contamination or the assortment of critters that liked to make their nests around the low growing plants and roots.
He had just spotted a rather bountiful Hellebore plant when quiet hissing drew his attention more solidly to the forest around him.
Glowing eyes swept the forest floor and the trees in search of whatever snake must be near.
He just about has a heart attack when the creature slinks, ever so quietly, further into sight.
Not in the trees, nor slithering in the underbrush. The beast creeps amongst the trees on nimble cloven hooves, leopard torso held low to the ground as it stalks, snakes head and neck moving almost ponderously to and fro as it scents the air.
All at once his mouth is dry, his throat a desert and he wants nothing more than to throttle someone.
Preferably whomever thought it would be a grand idea to drop a questing beast into a tournament for pseudo trained children.
He knew from his studies into magical creatures that they are wicked fast, despite their ungainly appearance. Knew that they are expert and relentless hunters and near as toxic as basilisks and that they're near impervious to physical attacks and resistant to lesser forms of magic.
He also knew, and is very thankful for the fact that they are by and large solitary in nature, because the thought of trying to deal with even one of them worries him in a way that raging mother dragons didn't.
Likely because as impressive as dragons tended to be, they were famous for their ferocity.
Not their lethality.
A very small bitter part of Harry wondered if even half the audience understands just how much danger they were all in.
Questing beasts travelled through the places between.
Which meant that wards were effectively useless against them.
Which did beg the question of how they had even managed to get it there to begin with, but he would worry about that later.
He had much bigger problems to deal with for the moment.
Like making sure the beast stayed focused on him and didn't try to hunt the other three champions.
Because as sure he was that they had tried to prepare themselves as much as they could, he rather doubted they had recently been on the receiving end of an intervention that had been put together with the express purpose of drilling into them just how potent their magic actually was.
With an added very serious warning to pay very close attention to their magic lest it take on a mind of its own, literally, and start enacting effects without any input from themselves. Conscious or otherwise.
Suffice it to say that the past fortnight had been a mixed bag of compounding problems for Harry.
Catching sight of the very moment when the beast's own attention focused in on him the young king quickly ran through possible fixes only for his mind temporarily went quiet as the creature lunged at him.
Harry dove out of the way then rapidly rolled across the vegetation lush ground to avoid a whip fast kick of its hind legs. A quick jerk of his hand and a thick vines shot out from the underbrush to try and wrap around its legs to try and hinder its movement.
They held just long enough for him to get his feet back under him and get some more distance between them.
He had a mad moment to wonder if he could manage to turn it into a duck like he had done the Swedish Short-Snout in the first task but quickly abandoned the thought when it leapt at him again.
He dodged out of the way and a slash of his hand had a wild gust of wind slap into the beast's side, sending it careening into the trunk of a thick tree. Then he has hands up, magic flaring as he pushes it into the tree watching intently as the tree itself starts to grow around the beast, wrapping it up and looking for all the world like it was absorbing the creature.
It was only because of his intense focus that Harry noticed the second the beast's own magic started to push back against the tree.
Unwilling to divert the flow of his magic into another action that may be even less effective, Harry instead increased the flow of his own strength.
He loosened the hold he kept on it, letting it rush to the surface like a tsunami and barely managed to give it the meanest of direction as a wave of euphoria swept over him. The high of powerful magic rushing through his veins so fiercely he imagined even his lips tingled with it.
The beast broke into a rash of angry barking, sounding for all the world like a pack of dogs after prey as it struggled, magic at war over and around its body.
Fighting down a shudder at the mad sound, Harry doubled down, slamming his power into the magic he was weaving and watching with intensely glowing eyes as little by little the questing beast was absorbed into the tree.
It felt like hours, it felt like seconds. It felt like horror crawling up his throat, trying to spill out into the world in waves of mad cacophonous barking.
But eventually the tree was near five times the size it had been originally, well and truly wrapped around the beast and itself. New growth shooting up every which way and roots as thick around as Hagrid was tall.
Vaguely aware that more than just his eyes were glowing, Harry pushed the thought aside and instead moved forward the few steps required for him to rest his hand against the much expanded trunk.
His magic continued to flow around him and he let his senses follow it, down into the heart of the tree and out into the small clearing.
He could feel the beast still alive inside the tree, heart beating in gradually slowing rhythm until it matched the pulse of Harry's own heart.
The teen had a brief moment to wonder if maybe he had unconsciously tied the beasts' own life to his own somehow or vice versa, before he turned away and came face to face with a wide eyed Cedric Diggory.
The older teens expression was lax with shock but his hand was tight around his wand, posture held at the ready as if he had thought to intervene or assist. His own eyes were focused on Harry and there was something there that struck the young king as familiar but unnamable.
Something he had encountered before, enough to recall it, but not be able to give name to it.
He watched the older teen drop down to one knee and had a brief moment of panic as he looked back through his memory for the possibility that the other had been there, injured already on the ground or behind some tree when Harry had arrived.
"Merlin."
The name was a choked whisper, barely audible, but it dragged his focus back to the older teenager. "Cedric?"
The Hufflepuff Seeker shuddered, his tongue darting out to lick his lips in a rare display of nerves. "Are yo-Are you Merlin?" He asked, voice husky and eyes so wide that Harry can see his reflection in the dark of his pupils.
He can see the thick shroud of tangible magic, the gently wavering strands of hair caught up in a breeze that wasn't there.
He felt like he fell into those wide, wide eyes. So far that he felt he knew Cedric in a way he never had before.
Knew that Cedric liked hearty stews and butterbeer in front of the fire, surrounded by friends. He knew that Cedric thought he might fall in love with Cho one day. He knew that Cedric loved his father dearly, though he did embarrass him sometimes with his eager support and ready affection, and that he missed his mother dearly, though he only truly remembers the smell of her soap and the way she smelt of baked sweets.
Harry knew that when Cedric looked at him, he saw something that Harry didn't, or maybe couldn't when he looked in the mirror.
For a wild moment Harry isn't quite sure what to say, his mind is quiet in a way it hasn't been for a while, even in sleep. His heart is beating slow and steady while his magic swims around him, coiling outward much like his animagus form.
He was pretty sure he was still a bit high from the magic rush and doubted that would clear up until he pulled his magic back in tight to his core.
"I don't think so." He said instead, belatedly realising that Cedric had actually meant his whispered question.
"Oh." The older teen sighs, shoulders drooping just a little as if disappointed.
They stay there in silence for a moment, Cedric still down on one knee and Harry watching him with open curiosity. Eventually Cedric looked up again, focusing his attention on the young king.
"Are you Magic?" Cedric asks, very seriously.
Despite the tone, Harry laughed just a little, an escape of lingering tension. "Yes." He answers, because it was true.
Harry Potter was a wizard, that meant that Harry Potter was magic.
Even if he was convinced most days that he was really nothing special, despite all the praise Sirius liked to heap at his feet.
Sirius was his godfather, he was practically contractually obligated to adore Harry.
But Cedric's expression changed. There was awe where confusion had been and now Harry isn't half wondering if he shouldn't have said 'No'.
"Come on," he said instead of asking about it. "We have a task to finish, before it starts pouring on us."
The older teen blinked and glanced up at the clear sky, expression returning back to confused. "I don't think it was meant to rain today, though."
Harry shrugged and turned to look around the clearing one more time. "Let's call it a hunch, yeah?" He suggested, giving the other a small smile before he turned his attention inward and set to work squashing his magic back down beneath the confines of his skin.
"There's still a half hour left for this section of the task." Cedric said quietly, looking down at a pocket watch he had slipped into his hand.
"Plenty of time." Harry replied when he had finally reigned in the spill of magic and all but his eyes had ceased glowing. "I was about to harvest a bit of Hellebore when the beast showed up. The plant seemed a decent size, you could probably get a bit yourself."
Moving over to where he had spotted the plant, Harry was pleased to see it hadn't been damaged in the scuffle. Dropping down beside it he set to work separating out some of the more choice bits, leaves and stalks that were less exposed to the elements and wandering creatures.
He took note of the way the older teen kept a respectful distance between them even while he was kneeling hunched over the plant to harvest his own cuttings, but opted to push the behaviour to the back of his mind for later perusal.
Hellebore cuttings acquired, Harry dusted himself off and cast a look around, sweeping the small clearing for anything he might have missed on his first sweep.
Shrugging off the lack of useful vegetation he contemplated directions before turning south in the hopes of picking up some helpful mosses and shadow dwelling insects and small beasts. He had only managed a handful of steps before he realised that Cedric had opted to follow along behind him.
He briefly considered asking why, since he was sure the older teen had said he was decent at herbology and pretty good with care of magical creatures. So he didn't think Cedric was sticking close to make the most out of Harry's own skill with recognising and harvesting useful plants, or the same with beasts.
Glancing over his shoulder, Harry took in the others' thoughtful expression. "I doubt there'll be another questing beast prowling around out here. It's rare to see even one of them over a stretch of five generations...actually makes me wonder how they managed to track one down."
"I didn't think so either, I bumped into a boggart not long ago, but nothing else particularly aggressive." Cedric replied, wand free hand moving to brush a low hanging branch out of the way.
Harry hummed softly at that. Honestly he doubted that was all there was to stumble across, the questing beast alone raised the danger level significantly and was very notably not a native resident of the forest, though they did tend to appear at random across the world, drawn to strife and betrayal.
Boggarts though could be found just about anywhere, so it wouldn't surprise him if the one Cedric had encountered had actually been a native of the Forbidden Forest.
The sense of approaching rain was tickling up his spine, thick enough that he could taste it at the back of his tongue. Strong enough that he was almost surprised that Cedric couldn't taste it too somehow, despite knowing that the sense came from his animagus side. One of the gifts that carried over regardless of what form he was in.
It was something that took a lot of getting used to, according to Sirius.
Padfoot the black hound, who hunted alongside the Reaper and could always, without fail, tell when a mortal soul was nearing its end.
Sirius who could feel the end of his best friend and his wife rapidly approaching every time he managed to visit, despite every twist and turn he had tried to slip into their defenses.
It haunted him, Harry knew. Both because he had admitted it, but also because Harry could see it in his eyes when his godfather had talked quietly about the powers and abilities that could be shared across forms. He had wanted Harry to be as informed and prepared as possible for whatever his form was prior to his first transformation.
So rather than complain and make a big deal about the almost cloying awareness of approaching rain, he kept his thoughts to himself and shrugged it off.
It could always be worse.