And here's the seventy sixth chapter of "A Year Too Soon"! Enjoy!

* Review Response:
Brockster550, BROMBROS, BMS, maartenvervloet, Hudy Leak613, kazikamikaze24, D.J. Scales, erbkaiser, TuxedoMac (guest), thank you for your reviews, folks!
magitech, maybe in some interview later on. The format of the First Task I chose for the story makes that rather impossible during the task itself.

* AN: This chapter has not been beta-read.

Disclaimer: I DO NOT own "Harry Potter" franchise. No profit is being made. Same goes for any books, video games, anime or manga I may or may not use for ideas.

"speaking"
"parseltongue"
'thinking'
written text
spells

A Year Too Soon
Chapter LXXVI: Facing the Dragon

The arena for the First Task was an elongated rectangle, roughly seventy by two hundred yards with a depression at its center and a number of large rocks scattered around. On the far end, there was a treasure pile with a prominent golden chest sitting on a white marble pedestal at the very front of it. There also were no other chests in that pile of (fake) treasure, so the Champions couldn't pick a wrong item by accident.

The dragon - a mature Welsh Green male - was chained to ground within the depression at the center of the arena. The chains were short enough that the areas immediately by the entrance/exit and the treasure pile were outside of its reach, fire breath included. Anywhere else in the arena, though…

Harry quickly moved behind one of the bigger rocks close to his starting location and began strategizing. There was no way to reach the chest without being out of cover and within the dragon's attack range for at least some time, so he'll need to make sure the beast was sufficiently distracted for those moments. He was also certain that the chest he needed to retrieve was enchanted against summoning Charms - not that he had enough power to summon it from such a distance anyway - and would probably resist featherlight Charms as well, so carrying it would noticeably encumber him.

Peeking from behind the rock, Harry took another glance at the dragon. The beast also saw him and breathed a stream of fire in his direction, though the young Slytherin was a bit too far to be in any danger from it and only felt a wave of heat pass by him.

"Aren't you a feisty one?" Harry said, switching to Parseltongue without really realizing it.

And, unfortunately for him, the dragon could hear him. And it could understand him. And it was insulted by being spoken to as if it was a mere garden snake.

The beast let out a mighty roar and tried to break out the chains. When that failed, it breathed out the biggest stream of fire it could.

Harry swore under his breath as he quickly ducked back behind the rock. It was just his cursed luck that he'd go and do something to anger the dragon. And an angry dragon fiercely guarding its hoard was a terrible opponent for anyone, much less a school student, to face. The beast will also be far more vigilant now, so his plan to confuse and distract it as he sneaked past it might not even work anymore.

Still, that was Harry's only 'good' plan, so he was going ahead with it regardless.

First thing first, he used the Bubble-Head Charm to ensure he himself would be protected from all of the things he was going to use for the next step. Which was filling the arena with smoke to interfere as much as possible with the dragon's sight and sense of smell.

Once he was sure that his Bubble-Head Charm was working properly, Harry switched to transfiguring random rocks on the ground into chunks of sulfur and anything else he thought would be helpful for the next step of his plan. And once he believed he had enough materials, he began setting the chunks on fire and banishing them to various spots around the area. He couldn't reach everywhere from his current cover, though. And the wind wasn't exactly favoring him either as it was blowing across the arena. Still, it wasn't all bad and he could cover a decent chunk of the arena with smoke from his current spot. And that included one of those big rocks he could use to hide from the dragon's sight on his way towards the treasure pile.

The third step of Harry's plan in some ways was simpler, though it still required some rather precise transfiguration: he needed to create a number of ratchets, animate them and disperse around the arena to mask any sounds he might make while trying to sneak past the dragon. This actually took some work, but soon enough the arena was filled with a cacophony of sounds.

Next, Harry transfigured a pair of human-shaped golems. Normally, they wouldn't be good enough to fool anyone, but with thick smelly smoke now covering the arena, they might actually work. The teen wizard then applied animation Charms to his creations and sent them towards the rocks to the left and right of his current location, with the 'order' to go back and forth until destroyed or the Magic wore out. And as soon as the golem entered the dragon's sight, the beast tried to burn them, evidently fooled into thinking that one of them was that human that dared to speak to it in Parseltongue.

This left Harry with the final piece of Magic to perform before he could start his journey across the arena: twirling his wand around himself Harry cast the Disillusionment Charm onto himself. It wasn't perfect but, once again, the smoke filling the arena should help him stay unnoticed.

Peeking out of his current cover, the young Slytherin was reassured to see that the beast was still trying to fry one of his golems. Good. And with that he began slowly creeping towards his next cover, doing his best not to attract the dragon's attention.

It took him quite a bit of time to actually get there, but he did it. Without getting noticed by the dragon, which was still sufficiently distracted by those crude golems. Taking a few moments to catch his breath, Harry began working on the next part of the arena.

And, unfortunately for him, the sudden appearance of more sources of smoke made the dragon realize where he actually was. The rock Harry was hiding behind was a bit out of the claws' and tail's reach, but still well in range of the fire breath. Which meant the beast was currently trying to melt it with fire in order to reach him.

Harry's solution was to create another golem and send it back towards where the other two were. Thankfully, this seemed to have worked and the dragon mistook the roughly-human-shaped pile or animated rock obscured by smelly smoke for real him and focused its attention on it.

Letting out a sigh of relief, the teen decided to make a run for the next good cover spot while the dragon was busy trying to fry his golem. He was still doing his best to move without doing anything that might draw the beast's attention back to him.

And once he was past the most dangerous part of the arena, Harry threw some of his previous caution away and ran towards the 'treasure hoard' as fast as he could without immediately giving himself away, Disillusionment Charm or not. By the time the dragon finally noticed him, he was already completely out of its reach. Not that it stopped the beast from trying to roast him with its fire breath regardless.

Once assured of his own safety, Harry took a bit of time to catch his breath and plan his next moves. The chest he was supposed to retrieve was rather big and didn't have handles that would make carrying it easy. It was also spelled against summoning and levitation Charms. And the Feather-light Charm as well. And the chest itself couldn't be disillusioned either. The creators of the Task definitely wanted sneaking it past the dragon to be troublesome.

The solution Harry had come up with was actually pretty simple: transfigure a rope from a nearby rock and tie it around the 'treasure' chest to turn it into, admittedly rather uncomfortable, backpack. A few Cushioning Charms could take care of that, though. And while he couldn't disillusion the chest itself, nothing prevented him from putting it under his properly-disillusioned robe.

Now he needed to get past the dragon again.

Since his initial plan, the one that got him here, had worked quite alright, the young Slytherin saw no reason to invent something new. Thus, he began covering the arena with thick smoke again, before spreading around the ratchets to mask himself from the beast's senses. Then finally sending out a pair of crude stone golems to act as further distractions.

This still worked, though not as well as it did previously:

While barely a sapient beast, the dragon wasn't completely stupid. By now, it has learned that the silhouettes moving in the smoke were fakes, nothing but animated rocks meant to distract it while the wizard himself remained hidden by his Magics. So the dragon paid little attention to fake humans and instead kept attacking random bits of empty space with its claws, its tail and its fire breath in hopes of downing the sneaky human by chance.

Harry saw that, and immediately altered his plan. As exhausting as it was, he created a few more golems and commanded them to head to the other side of the area where the exit was located. Then he shadowed one of them, hopeful that the dragon would keep attacking empty spaces in a futile attempt to find him there.

It took him quite a while, but somehow he managed to cover most of the way back to the arena's entrance without drawing the beast's attention. Unfortunately for him, the dragon eventually got very frustrated from not being able to locate 'that puny human' and bathed everything in his range in fire.

Harry had to quickly dive behind the nearest rock pillar to avoid getting roasted alive. This caused the chest to bang painfully against his back, despite the Cushioning Charm the teen had placed on it earlier. The need to keep quiet only made it worse.

After a minute or two, the pain in his back began fading and Harry resumed his soundless journey towards the 'finish line' for the Task. He was even slower than before now, and didn't even have a golem to shadow, but at least he wasn't that far from the exit now. He just needed to avoid drawing the dragon's attention to himself as he covered the final stretch.

And, after a couple of nerve-wrecking minutes, he succeeded.

He still didn't undo the Disillusionment Charm of the Bubble-Head Charm until he exited the arena entirely.

"Good job, Mr. Potter." One of the Ministry men said as he approached. "Please go to the medical tent so that Madam Pomfrey can check you over while the judges assess your performance and decide on your score." Harry nodded and headed for the aforementioned medical tent.

The adrenaline he had been running on for the latter part of the First Task was now wearing off, and so Harry began to finally realize just how exhausted he actually was. Indeed, he had used a lot of advanced spells to sneak past the dragon - twice - and it has taken its heavy toll on him.

Thankfully, Madam Pomfrey was waiting for him. She quickly sat him on an empty bed within her tent and cast a few quick diagnostics Charms to make sure he hadn't suffered any serious harm during the Task. Apparently, the bruise on his back was the worst of it. Aside from Magical and physical exhaustion, of course.

"Thank Merlin, at least you managed to get through this stupid task without getting yourself hurt much" The witch grumbled, mostly to herself, as she applied some salve on his back. Apparently, the other Champions had had their share of troubles when trying to get past their dragons, Harry concluded tiredly as he did his best not to fall asleep. "Here, drink this, Mr. Potter." Madam Pomfrey said then as she handed him a vial of Invigoration Draught.

Harry quickly downed the potion. And almost immediately his tiredness receded. It will surely be back once the effects of the potion wear off, but at least he now had the energy to go see his scores. He was going straight to his room in the Slytherin dormitories afterwards, to get his well-earned rest. Any celebrations and attempts to figure out the clue from the chest could wait until later.

"Thank you." He said, before putting his robes back on and then walking out of the medical tent.

Some five minutes later, he finally arrived at the Quidditch stadium where the spectators and the judges watched the First Task from. Several large enchanted mirrors were placed at the center of the field and acted as viewing screens. That was quite a neat piece of Magic right there.

Just a few moments after his arrival, Ludo Bagman announced:

"The esteemed judges have finished reviewing 's attempt to conquer the First Task of the Tournament and are now ready to mark his performance." Immediately all mirrors switched to showing the aforementioned judges.

Madam Maxime went first. She raised her wand into the air and produced a long silvery ribbon from it, which then twisted itself into a large figure eight. Mr. Bagman himself went next and gave Harry a nine. It was then Karkarov's turn and the Durmstrang Headmaster wasn't feeling very generous today: five points was all that he was willing to give Harry. He was followed by a temporary Head of the Department of International Magical Cooperation, whose name escaped Harry at the moment. The man did give him a nine, though. Then, finally, it was Dumbledore's turn. And the Hogwarts Headmaster added another nine points to Harry's score.

So, overall, he got forty points out of fifty possible. Not bad. Probably. Harry wasn't told the scores of other Champions, after all. He'll make sure to ask Flora and Hestia about that later.

And even though the effects of the Invigoration Draught wouldn't last for too long, he still waited for his girlfriends at the entrance of Quidditch stadium. Quite a few people, both from Slytherin and other Houses, and even a couple of guests from Beauxbaton and Durmstrang congratulated him on successfully completing the First Task as they walked past him. Finally, after about five minutes, the twins arrived.

"Congratulations, Harry!" Flora said. "We knew you could do it!"

"You were great!" Hestia added.

"Thank you." Harry replied.

"So… When are you going to open that chest?" Flora asked then, nodding towards the golden 'treasure' her boyfriend had stolen from a big mean dragon less than half an hour ago.

"Not tonight." He said. "The Task took a lot out of me, I'm really running on fumes right now. I'm going to get back to my room and fall asleep now." The twins pouted. Both because they were really curious about what was in that chest - Mr. Bagman didn't actually explain why the Champions had to retrieve them - and they also wanted to have a party with him tonight.

"Alright." They said almost in unison.

And with that the three of them began their journey to the Slytherin dormitories. They were quickly joined by the rest of their clique and Harry had to once again explain that he didn't have the strength to party right now. His friends, while a bit unhappy about this, were quite understanding.

The same couldn't really be said about his other classmates: by the time the Clique reached the common room, some of the Slytherins were already busy organizing the party. And they definitely wanted the man of the hour there for the entire thing.

"C'mon, Harry." A seventh year, who had never called him anything other than contemptuous 'Potter', whined when Harry refused to join the celebrations.

"No means no. If you want to party - then by all means. But I'm going to retire to bed right now, and that's final." It probably came out a bit more harsh than he intended, but he didn't have the strength to care right now. Then, without giving the other wizard a chance to say anything, Harry pushed past him and headed straight for his room within the dormitories with a bit of haste as he could feel the effects of the Invigoration Draught start wearing off.

~/ *** \~

Listening to the live broadcasting of the Triwizard Tournament's First Task on Wizarding Wireless had put Barty Crouch Jr. in a rather contemplative mood. The Potter brat somehow managed to get past a dragon guarding its hoard and steal a 'treasure' from it without any notable injuries to himself. Or the dragon. That was actually quite impressive.

It was almost a pity that the boy would die by the Dark Lord's hand on the night of his glorious return. Almost.

Still, Barty thought, there at least was a good chance the boy would live through the Tournament to be there when his Master denies Death itself and comes back to the world of living to claim his rightful place as the one and only true ruler of the Magical world. No, not just Magical world, the entire world.

That meant he should keep working on his plan to discredit Potter. It would be really troublesome if the boy ended up dying a martyr for the mudbloods and blood traitors to rally around. That wouldn't do.

The fact that people now accepted that the brat had been forced into the Triwizard Tournament by an outside conspiracy would make this project a bit harder, but Crouch Jr. was certain that could pull it off. He was the Dark Lord's most loyal, most capable servant after all.

That's all, folks!
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