The First Task:
Hadrian had just entered the tent where all the champions were supposed to wait for information on the First Task. He saw Fleur Delacour sitting in a chair, looking at her fingernails in boredom. He once again felt a pull in his brain which he knew was her veela allure. Thankfully he seemed to be able to fight it off, and with his recent dive into Occlumency, he found it much easier to stave off the unwelcome thoughts forming in his head.
Viktor Krum was standing off in the corner of the tent, brooding, apparently. Well, that's what he seemed to be doing. His head was down and his eyes were closed, it seemed like the stereotypical pose for brooding to Hadrian. He should know, he's been doing it a lot lately.
Finally, Cedric Diggory was pacing around the room, in what seemed to be uneasiness. He was the only one that acknowledged Hadrian as he entered, giving him a nod and a small smile. Hadrian returned the nod. He had no problem with the seventh year Hufflepuff seeker. Cedric was one of the few people in Hogwarts that didn't believe that Hadrian had put his name into the Goblet of Fire.
Shortly after being told he would have to compete in the tournament, Hadrian and Cedric were both dismissed to their dorm rooms. During the walk Cedric had asked if Hadrian had indeed put his name into the Goblet, Hadrian denied that he did and further stated that he did not consider himself a champion. In Hadrian's mind, Cedric was the Hogwarts champion, while he was just an unwanted fourth participant. The intensity and passion in his voice, convinced Cedric that Hadrian was telling the truth. Sadly, the same could not be said for many others.
Over that past couple of weeks, Hadrian had been ostracised from the rest of the school. Everywhere he went people whispered behind him.
"There's Potter, trying to hog the glory again."
"Attention-seeking brat."
"Liar."
"Cheat."
"Loser."
"Orphan."
That last one always hurt.
These horrible insults and names were thrown around by members of all houses. Hadrian expected this from the members of Slytherin house, especially the ones who were part of Draco Malfoy's group. That boy and Hadrian had been enemies since the first day they met, and Hadrian doubted that they would be able to ever move past their rivalry. It would take a miracle for that to happen.
What really surprised him were that members of Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw were also joining the "Let's bash Potter" club. In hindsight Hadrian should have expected some animosity from the house of badgers. He had been on shaky ground with members of that house since second year, where Ernie McMillan and Zacharias Smith had accused him of being the Heir of Slytherin. He had been on friendly terms with other members of the house, mainly the ones from the Quidditch team, from the games they played. But, alas, it was not to be. Majority of Hufflepuff felt as if Hadrian had stolen their glory from Cedric being chosen as the Hogwarts champion.
Ravenclaw was what surprised him. He never had any problems with the house of eagles, he got along well with all the members in his year and the ones from the Quidditch team, so he hoped that they would take a neutral stance on all this. He should know by now to never hope for anything positive in this school.
It wasn't just the students that were the problem, some of the teachers had started giving Hadrian the cold shoulder as well. Professor's Sprout and Vector had turned a blind eye to the bullying and blatant animosity that was being thrown in Hadrian's direction. Snape as well, but that was to be expected by this point. Professor's McGonagall, Flitwick, Moody and Hagrid, had, thankfully, been treating him the same. Hadrian never thought that he would one day be grateful that McGonagall would still treat him with her usual strict standard.
No help was given from the Headmaster or officials of the tournament either. They had stayed completely silent on the matter, which was quite stupid in Hadrian's opinion. One announcement that Hadrian's name was put into the Goblet of Fire to try and injure and/or kill him, would probably help. But no, not a word was said.
What was also quite shocking was the fact that the majority of his own house, Gryffindor, had turned their backs on him as well. Those in seventh year like Angelina Johnson, felt that Hadrian had stolen their opportunity to compete in the tournament. Those in sixth, fifth and fourth year felt as if Hadrian was nothing more than an attention-seeking gloryhound. The members in lower years didn't really have concrete opinions on the matter, but were slowly starting to follow the majority out of fear of being outed themselves.
On his first day in Hogwarts Hadrian was told that his house would be like his family, if family meant "group of people who only side with you when it's convenient to them". Then Hadrian wanted nothing to do with them.
But never mind all of them. Hadrian knew that he could still depend on his friends, the people who had been there for him through the toughest of adventures and deadliest of scenarios. Well, at least he thought he could.
Ronald Weasley, Hadrian's best friend since he entered the wizarding world, had just like everyone else, accused him of putting his name in the Goblet.
The two boys had a shouting match on the selection day, and it had ended with Ronald attempting to punch Hadrian, only to be met with one by Hadrian instead. Ronald looked up at his former friend and spat blood that was slowly coming from his mouth at him, stating "Piss off, Potter", before storming out.
'Well, to hell with him.' Hadrian thought. 'Some friend he turned out to be. After everything we've been through he abandons me after some petty jealousy.'
Even though he lost a valued friend, and most of the school was against him, Hadrian wasn't alone. He still had a small support group that he found himself leaning on more and more as the weeks have gone on.
Hermione Granger had never wavered being at Hadrian's side. The morning after his name came out of the Goblet, Hadrian was surprised to see Hermione sitting alone in the Gryffindor common room. Before he could say anything to her she stopped him, said she believed him, then gave him a plate of toast to eat for breakfast. She figured he would want to avoid going to the Great Hall that day. Hadrian once again thanked whatever god was watching over him that he had a friend like Hermione.
Other than Hermione, the other person who had been at Hadrian's side was Neville Longbottom. Good'ol Neville had sat beside Hadrian that day at dinner, looked him in the eyes and said, "I believe you, Harry. I got your back.".
Hadrian was taken aback by this, but eventually recovered and gave Neville a pat on the back in thanks. It felt good to have some support from people other than your normal group of friends. It was during that dinner that Hadrian's mind began to wonder about the boy next to him.
He and Neville weren't really friends. More like friendly classmates who could hold a conversation together if they had to. But this situation had made Hadrian value his friends more. So, he would do everything in his power to become a good friend to Neville, and hopefully one day repay the loyalty that Neville had given him in this dark time in his life.
Both Hermione and Neville had been helping Hadrian prepare for this First Task. In between classes and during breaks, the three of them would head into abandoned classrooms and practice spells that might help Hadrian survive. That was the key word: survive.
Hadrian didn't want to win the tournament, he didn't want the glory or fame or 1000 galleon prize. He just wanted to survive and find out who put his name in the Goblet. He had his own ideas on who it could be, of course. The first suspect was of course Voldemort. Hadrian knew he was still out there, in some demented form no doubt. The second suspect was Severus Snape, the Potions Professor at Hogwarts. It was no secret to those at Hogwarts that Snape and Hadrian hated each other, Snape because of some grudge against Hadrian's dead father, and Hadrian because of the treatment he and his fellow Gryffindor's had been given by the so-called 'Professor'.
'Even though he hates my guts, he wouldn't stoop to something like this, right?' Hadrian thought to himself.
'Then again it wouldn't surprise me. At least I'd get a reason to knock the greasy git on his ass.'
The third suspect on his list was Headmaster Karkaroff. Hadrian had no solid evidence or reasons as to why Karkaroff would put his name in the Goblet. The only ones he could think of was that it would hurt the reputation of Hogwarts. But that alone wasn't a strong enough reason to want Hadrian to die, was it?
A couple days ago, Hadrian was given a letter in the owl post from Hagrid, asking for him to meet him that night, and to bring his invisibility cloak. That night Hadrian walked down to Hagrid's hut with his invisibility cloak tucked under his right arm. Hagrid had instructed Hadrian to put on his cloak and follow him, and lead Hadrian through the forbidden forest. Eventually the two stopped at a sight that scared Hadrian still. There were four dragons locked in cages.
'A test of bravery.' Hadrian remembered was the clue he had been given as to what the First Task would intell.
'Fuck.'
The sound of the entrance to the tent opening, snapped Hadrian out of his thoughts. In came, Headmaster's Dumbledore, Maxine and Karkaroff, Ludo Bagman, the commentator and one of the organisers of the tournament and Barty Crouch, one of the organisers and head of the Department of International Magical Co-operation.
Bagman held out a bag, which inside contained which dragon the champions would be facing. After finding out that he would have to face a dragon, Hadrian had consulted a book about the creatures and used the descriptions of the ones he had seen to determine which type they were. He found out that the choices were, a Chinese Fireball, a Hungarian Horntail, a Welsh Green and finally, a Swedish Short-Snout.
The four students gathered around and prepared to pick their dragon.
"Ladies first," Bagman said, offering it to Fleur Delacour. She put a shaking hand inside the bag and drew out a tiny, perfect model of a dragon - a Welsh Green. It had the number two around its neck and Hadrian knew, by the fact that Fleur showed no sign of surprise, but rather a determined resignation, that Madame Maxime had told her what was coming.
"Miss Delacour will be facing the Welsh Green and will go second." Barty Crouch announced.
"Mr Krum" He prompted.
Krum put his hand in and pulled out the scarlet Chinese Fireball. It had a number three around its neck.
"Mr Krum will be facing the Chinese Fireball and will go third. Mr Diggory, if you please?"
Krum didn't even blink, just sat back down and stared at the ground. So, he knew too.
Cedric put his hand into the bag, and out came the blueish-gray Swedish Short-Snout, the number one tied around its neck.
"Ah, the Swedish Short-Snout, and you'll be going first. That leaves Mr Potter with…"
"The fucking Horntail." Hadrian murmured to himself.
"What was that?" Crouch asked.
"Nothing."
Hadrian put his hand into the silk bag and pulled out the Hungarian Horntail, and the number four. It stretched its wings as he looked down at it, and bared its minuscule fangs.
"Well, there you are!" said Bagman as he put the bag in his pocket. "You have each pulled out the dragon you will face, and the order in which you will face them. Mr. Diggory, you're first, just go out into the enclosure when you hear a whistle, all right?
With that, the adults left, and the atmosphere in the tent remained very tense.
Hadrian sat down and looked at the miniturature dragon in his hand.
'Of course I have to face the most dangerous one.' He moaned to himself.
A loud announcement echoed, "Ladies and Gentleman, welcome to the First Task of the 125th Triwizard Tournament!"
The sound of a crowd cheering could be heard. Even though he didn't have to go first, Hadrian began to feel incredibly nervous.
"For this task, our champions must put their bravery to the test, as they face the most dangerous of creatures: a dragon!" Bagman announced.
Murmurs from the crowd could be heard.
"Up first, taking on the Swedish Short-Snout, we have the Hogwarts Champion, Mr Cedric Diggory!"
A loud cheer came from the crowd. Cedric took a deep breath and began to walk out the tent.
"Cedric." Hadrian called out.
The seventh year boy stopped and looked over his shoulder.
"Good luck."
Cedric nodded and gave a small smile, "Same to you." He walked out and into the arena.
After what felt like years, but was in fact just around an hour later, it was Hadrian's turn.
"And finally, our last competitor, taking on the Hungarian Horntail, let's give it up for Mr Hadrian Potter." Bagman announced.
Hadrian took a long deep breath, and walked out into the arena. He was met with a large amount of boos from the audience.
All four houses of Hogwarts were booing him, they even had signs made with insults on them, and of course they were all wearing the "Potter Stinks" badges that Draco Malfoy had made.
The students of Beauxbatons and Durmstrang were booing him as well, but he wasn't from their school, so that was fair enough to him.
There were however, two people that Hadrian saw that were actually cheering him on, despite what the rest of crowd was saying. Hermione and Neville were cheering him on in the stands.
"You got this Harry!" Neville shouted.
"Come on Harry!" Hermione exclaimed.
It wasn't much but, it meant a lot.
Hadrian began to tune out the crowd. He had to if he was going to get out of this alive. He needed to stop focusing on the people, and start focusing on the fire-breathing dragon that was sent to stop him.
From what Hadrian had heard from Bagman's announcing, he determined that he would have to procure a golden egg from the dragon in order to complete the task. Simple, right? The only problem was that the egg was being guarded by a giant dragon, and not just any dragon, a Hungarian Horntail. One of the most deadliest dragons to ever exist.
Hadrian found himself once again cursing his ability to attract trouble.
A loud rumble caused him to look ahead and see his obstacle.
The Horntail, stood at the other end of the arena, crouched low over her clutch of eggs, her wings half-furled, her evil, yellow eyes upon him, a monstrous, scaly, black lizard, thrashing her spiked tail, heaving yard-long gouge marks in the hard ground.
'Well, here goes nothing.' Hadrian thought, as he prepared to tackle the dragon. Hadrian had not told Hermione or Neville what he planned on doing when he came face to face with the Horntail. Whenever they asked he simply said, "I got an idea.".
Hadrian put his wand up to his throat and muttered, "Sonorous."
"Oh great dragon, hear me please." Hadrian began speaking, but not in english, in parseltongue.
Hadrian came up with the idea that dragons were pretty much just larger snakes, so maybe talking to it in snake language and asking for the egg would work.
The dragon cautiously moved closer. "A speaker. What is it you want?"
"I merely wish to take what does not belong to you. Those in charge of this event have placed an egg in your nest which is not yours. Please allow me to remove it and you can continue to look after your children in peace."
The Horntail appeared to be considering his words.
"If what you say is true, then those responsible must pay for what they've done!" The Horntail roared.
Hadrian gulped. It was mad.
"I feel the same. Please allow me to rectify the crime they have committed and remove the fake egg from your own." Hadrian calmly asked, though he was anything but.
The Horntail stanced up. "Oh, I don't think so. Their punishment can be seeing that their incompetence has led to the death of a young one."
'Shit' Hadrian thought. This wasn't the way this was supposed to go.
Before he could say anything to change the Horntail's mind, it unleashed a huge breath of fire at him. Hadrian threw himself behind a large boulder to avoid the flames.
'Well, I guess we're going with Plan B then.' Hadrian thought to himself.
Plan B: Kill the dragon.
Hadrian could hear the dragon unleash another burst of flames at the boulder he was hiding behind. Thankfully the boulder managed to remain intact despite being doused in flames.
'Ok, here we go.' Hadrian thought.
He ran from behind the boulder and behind another one in the middle of the arena, while ducking to avoid the dragon's spiked tail. If his plan was going to work, the Horntail needed to be in the middle of the arena. To his pleasure, the Horntail began moving away from her nest and towards his current hiding place.
'Perfect.'
Once he felt the Horntail was close enough Hadrian climbed on top of the boulder.
"I want you to know," he began speaking in parseltongue again, "I tried to do this peacefully."
The Horntail did not respond and simply whipped her tail once again at him. Hadrian jumped off the boulder avoiding it.
'Now!' He internally shouted.
Hadrian began blasting the dragon with a barrage of curses.
"Confringo!"
"Diffindo!"
The curses landed on their target and made cuts and began to open wounds on the Horntail.
Hadrian kept up the constant stream of curses as he made his way under the Horntail. Once under it, Hadrian looked up at the Horntail's belly. He then shot a powerful banishing charm at it.
"Depulso!"
The wounded dragon was launched up into the air.
'Now's my chance.' Hadrian thought urgently.
He only had a small window to execute his final move. He had been working on it with Neville for a while now, and was hoping that he could finally get it to work now. This was as good a time as any.
Shortly after helping Hadrian prepare for the First Task, Neville told Hadrian about his family. Apparently the Potter's were a powerful family in the wizarding world. They held much power, financially, magically and politically. Hadrian was also told by his friend that every Ancient and Noble family, like the Potters, had access to a family sword. There were two swords that every family had, one for the head of the family, and one for the heir.
When asked how he could acquire his sword, Neville replied by telling him that the swords were most likely locked up in his family's vault in Gringotts. However, the sword meant for the head of the family, often called the Lord Sword - mainly due to the fact that most heads of families tended to be males - could be summoned by the wielder. Hadrian thought of it like the sword of Godric Gryffindor.
"But, I'm underage, shouldn't I be using the heir sword?" Hadrian asked.
"Usually yes." Neville responded. "But since both your parents have passed, and you're the only magical member of your family left, you can claim lordship."
Hadrian immediately asked how this could be done, and after some help from Neville, he sent Hedwig to Gringotts with a letter requesting his lordship.
A couple days later he got an envelope in the owl post. It carried the Gringotts crest. After opening it in private, Hadrian found two things inside, a letter confirming his status as lord of the house of Potter, and the head of house ring.
After showing Neville, he began practising summoning the sword to himself with little success. He could always feel the sword but could never actually materialise it.
It was during one of his summoning practices that Neville told Hadrian another fact about witches and wizards. This one was about one's magical aura. If someone had a powerful magical core, they could make their magical aura manifest around them.
This was what Hadrian was counting on.
Hadrian looked up at the Horntail that was still up in the air from the banishing charm earlier.
'Now!' He yelled to himself.
Hadrian felt something appear in his right hand, it was heavy. If Hadrian looked down, he would have seen a long, silver sword with a glowing green gem in the centre of the hilt. The Lord Sword of the House of Potter.
Along with the appearance of the sword, Hadrian began to be surrounded by an emerald green aura.
He jumped and soared up into the air with an inhuman amount of power behind his launch. He plunged the Lord Sword into the Horntail and began to cut through the dragon. He let out a guttural scream as he did so.
"Grrrhh, Aaaahhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!"
Hadrian felt himself land on the ground, and allowed a cocky smile to grace his face for a moment. He had killed a Hungarian Horntail.
The crowd, which had been making noise the entire time, was now silent.
Hadrian took a moment to catch his breath. He was sweating from the amount of magical energy he had expended. He looked down at the sword clutched in his right hand. This was his family's sword, the sword his father and his grandfather held. In some weird way, he felt more connected to his family.
He calmly walked to the Horntail's nest, found the golden egg and exited the arena.
That was the day that the most powerful wizard in history, Lord Hadrian Potter, had truly arrived.