NOVEL NEXT Chapter 16: The First Task
A/N: Here's the new Chapter! Which also means the next four chapters are up on my Patreon for early access as well as the chance to vote on the direction of the story!
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In which Harry gives the audience a different sort of show this time around.
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The day of the First Task has arrived. More specifically, the hour of the First Task has arrived. Having just finished lunch, Harry departs from the Great Hall ahead of schedule, intending to make his way down to the Waiting Tent near the First Task Arena before anyone can come and get him.
However, the moment he leaves the Great Hall, a bundle of barely contained fuzzy brunette hair all but collides with his chest.
“H-Harry!”
Blinking, Harry grabs Hermione Granger by the shoulders in order to still her current frantic energy, looking her over and quickly deducing that she hasn’t been sleeping well. In fact, the brunette book worm looks pale as a ghost… and quite sickened at that. Finally managing to calm down enough to look him in the eye, she all but blanches.
Her mouth opens and closes several times, but she can’t quite get the words out. However, her demeanor alone is enough to tell him that she’s done exactly what he asked of her. She’s done her research. And in classic Hermione fashion, she’s come to conclusions that no one else in the Wizarding World has managed to come to, despite the evidence staring them all right in the face. Finally, Hermione settles for letting out a shuddering breath and whimpering.
“We… w-we have to do something. A-Anything.”
Surprised but not really that someone as brilliant as Hermione had managed to uncover enough to truly horrify her, Harry smiles softly and pulls Hermione into his chest, hugging his best friend close and running a hand through her incredibly frazzled hair. As he does so, he uses a very light application of magic to settle down her brunette locks… and also Hermione herself, easing the panic she’s feeling momentarily. If he hadn’t, he feels like she might have started hyperventilating on him.
Of course, he doesn’t just use magic to calm her down. He also uses words.
“Don’t worry, Hermione. We will.”
He lets that sit in the air for a moment before continuing, murmuring directly into the top of her head.
“The Wizarding World has become complacent, Hermione. They’ve been stuck in their ways for far too long. Even those of us with a foot in the muggle world don’t understand the danger… not truly. Half-bloods and Muggleborns alike have allowed themselves to be subsumed by the magical world’s culture, leading to unconscionable ignorance of the muggle world… and just what they can do to both themselves and us.”
Hermione shivers at that, knowing full well from her own research precisely the sort of things he’s talking about. But she can only really imagine it. Harry… he’s lived it. Feeling more confident than ever before that he’s on the right path, he pulls back and looks Hermione in the eye again.
“We’ll talk later, Hermione. But just know this. Today is the day we start shaking the Wizarding World free of its complacency. Whatever it takes.”
She stares at him with wide, hopeful eyes for a moment before shakily jerking her head up and down in an approximation of a nod. Giving her one last smile and one last squeeze of her shoulders, Harry pulls away and heads down to the tent.
Admittedly, he’s curious to see if anything will have changed from what he remembers. As he arrives at the Waiting Tent and is ushered in, he can’t help but think that it SHOULD all be the same… right? The only real difference is that he blew Hagrid off when the half-giant tried to get Harry to use his Invisibility Cloak to follow him and Maxime into the Forbidden Forest. As far as Hagrid knew, Harry had gone ahead and done it… but he honestly hadn’t bothered.
That shouldn’t have change anything for anyone else though… right?
Except, as the rest of the Champions file in, Harry remembers something else that he’s inadvertently changed. Looking at the poorly concealed knowledge on Viktor and Fleur’s faces, and the complete lack of it on Cedric’s, Harry realizes that HE was the one who told Cedric Diggory about the dragons in the first timeline. He’d done so out of a sense of fairness upon realizing that pretty much everyone else was cheating to find out what the First Task was.
He hadn’t done so this time. Honestly, he’d barely been thinking about the Triwizard Tournament save for how he might use it to further all of his OTHER plans.
Before Harry can consider trying to get a message to Cedric now, it all kicks off. The officials come in, speak momentarily, and then have the four Champions pull the miniature dragons from the little pouch same as before. Also same as before, Cedric is first to pull and drags out the Swedish Short-Stout. And… he doesn’t look remotely confident in how he’s going to handle it. The flat-footed expression on his face as he’s told he’ll be battling the real life version of the miniature dragon and trying to claim a golden egg from its nest makes it clear nobody told Cedric anything in Harry’s absence.
… Still, he’s a Seventh Year, right? Harry figures it should be fine.
“ARRRRRRRRRRGH!!!”
Right up until the scream of pain that comes from outside a few minutes after Cedric leaves. Followed by lots of shouting and the roar of a dragon. Harry grimaces, even as both Krum and Fleur jolt in their spots. He can only hope he didn’t get Cedric killed even earlier than the previous timeline. That said, Harry checks on his competitors. Krum settles back down and looks more determined than ever before… but Fleur looks shaken and terrified, her mask of poise and elegance torn away by whatever Cedric’s fate might have been.
In that moment, even knowing that he and Fleur have a wager he very much wishes to win… Harry meets the beautiful young woman’s eyes from across the tent and gives her an encouraging smile.
“Don’t lose your nerve now, Delacour. We both know you’re more than up to this task.”
Fleur’s eyes widen in shock at his kind words, but she’s also visibly bolstered by them. She doesn’t get the chance to respond before she’s called up to go next, but she does leave the tent with a certain… swagger in her step. Harry, meanwhile, is quietly relieved. They probably wouldn’t have continued the First Task if Cedric was outright KILLED by his dragon, right?
… Right?
Either way, he and Krum both hear the tell-tale signs of Fleur’s singing soon enough, and judging by the clapping and cheering from the crowd that ensues a few minutes later, she’s succeeded in her task. Though there’s also an audible gasp at one point, which Harry remembers must be the moment when the dragon she’s lulled to sleep accidentally sets her a little on fire with a snort from its flaring nostrils.
Either way, Krum goes next and from what Harry hears, does just as well and just as poorly with his strategy as last time. Meaning he succeeds in blinding the dragon in order to get his egg, but also ends up inadvertently causing his dragon to crush a few of its own eggs as a result of its blindness. Shame, that.
Finally… it’s Harry’s turn. Ignoring Ludo Bagman’s desperate attempts to give Harry a last second peptalk, he steps out of the tent and into the sunlight, his eyes adjusting quickly as he walks into the arena. Hundreds of pairs of eyes fall upon him, but it’s nothing Harry isn’t used to. Admittedly, by his memory of things it’s been a long time since he was last the center of THIS much attention, but to be fair, he HAD played Quidditch every year he was at Hogwarts.
Harry’s own eyes are on the Hungarian Horntail, the real one rather than the miniature one he pulled from the bag. Everything has turned out pretty much the same so far, save for whatever happened to Cedric. The dragons each contestant had to contend with were the same if nothing else. Which of course meant Harry found himself up against the Hungarian Horntail, the worst of the lot.
Perfect.
Lifting his wand, Harry lets a small smile appear on his face for the audience’s sake as he begins to cast a spell. Casting silently, he nevertheless moves his lips to give the impression to most of the onlookers that he’s just saying the spells under his breath. However, anyone who knows better will be able to tell that’s not the case. In this moment, he’s giving those with a modicum of real power the ability to see more of him than he’s let on. Everyone else… well, they’ll just have to enjoy the show for what it is.
Out of the earth, Harry raises up over a dozen massive golems, surrounding himself in a circle of the creature, each one towering over him at around twelve feet tall. Made of rock and stone and dirt, they shake themselves as if they’re alive for a brief moment… and then zero in on the resting Hungarian Horntail a few hundred feet away.
The dragon, curled up in its nest around it’s eggs, huffs at the sight of Harry and his magic, looking completely unperturbed. But then to be fair, the unintelligent beast has a right to feel unworried. After all, dragons are notoriously resistant to magic. There’s a reason that dragonhide is so expensive and so sought after for certain high-stakes magical professions, after all.
Even with the power of two witches stacked on top of his own incredibly robust magic, Harry isn’t likely to be able to break through the Hungarian Horntail’s hide without wasting a simply unacceptable amount of his strength.
But then, that’s not what he’s here to do. He’s not here to kill a dragon. He’s not here to pierce a dragon’s hide. He’s here to get a golden egg and win a bet… and that’s exactly what he’s going to do.
As his rock golems all charge forward, Harry walks with purpose in their wake, striding across the arena. Meanwhile, the Hungarian Horntail rises from her nest, uncurling that massive spike-ball tail of hers and throwing her head back with a roar of challenge that SHAKES the very air itself between them. Then… she begins to lumber forward, moving towards him and his golems.
The crowd gasps at her charge, but Harry just smiles and twirls his wand in a flourish. It’s not necessary, truth be told. He doesn’t need to do anything with his wand at this point, he has complete control over his magic and that includes the golems. After all… the golems aren’t really golems at all.
What might appear at first glance to be a simple Animation Spell, is actually a far more complex Animation Spell, one that Harry knows those with any degree of knowledge will recognize. Everyone else will just be awed by the spectacle.
The end result is the same though. As the Hungarian Horntail reaches the first of his golems, she contemptuously tosses her head, intending to bash right through it. But rather than being slammed, smashed, and scattered to the winds, the golem… melts onto her face, immediately covering half of her sinuous head.
The Hungarian Horntail’s remaining visible eye widens in disbelief and outrage, and her open nostril flares in anger as she tries to roar through a half-closed jaw. But before she can break free of the first melted golem, the other eleven all reach her and do exactly the same thing. Because as previously mentioned, they weren’t golems at all… Harry had individually animated every rock, stone, and piece of dirt that made up their ‘bodies’.
In an instant, the Hungarian Horntail is immobilized. From her head all the way to her spiky death ball of a tail. And though she struggles mightily… Harry’s magic holds. Because while it might not be strong enough to pierce a dragon’s hide without significant cost, his magic is MORE than strong enough to hold a dragon in place, regardless of just how physically powerful that dragon might be.
To really sell it, Harry doesn’t ever even look the Hungarian Horntail in the eye. He makes sure she can breathe of course, but he makes a nice show of paying her absolutely no mind as he strides forward and snatches the golden egg right out from her nest.
Standing there amidst the other eggs, Harry turns and grins, thrusting the golden egg up into the air. The crowd goes absolutely WILD of course, and Harry lets them positively freak out for a few moments before striding right back out of the arena.
He lets the handlers for the Horntail get into place before finally releasing the Horntail from her prison of magically animated dirt, rock, and stone. At which point, they quickly get her under control in their own way. Harry, meanwhile, feels undeniably smug as he enters the Waiting Tent to find Professor McGonagall staring at him like he’s grown a second head.
In the end, the Transfiguration Professor closes her agape mouth and swallows thickly before giving him a simple nod.
“Well done, Mister Potter.”
“Thank you, Professor.”
That’s all the words they exchange before he finds himself called out before the judges once more. Harry is curious to see what scores they’ll give him in this timeline. Was he flashy enough to make up for the fact that he hadn’t led the Horntail on a death-defying flight around the Castle?
It certainly seems he was for Maxime’s taste, because the woman gives him a Nine this time around when he’s sure she gave him an eight last time. Crouch and Dumbledore also give him Nines, which just makes Harry wonder what the hell he would have had to do to make them give him Tens. Probably just not possible, considering Crouch was Crouch even under the Imperius Curse and Dumbledore didn’t want to be accused of favoritism.
The last two judges, on the other hand, couldn’t have cared less about being accused of favoritism. In Ludo’s case, this works in Harry’s favor. The man gives him a Ten because his life literally depends on Harry winning. Meanwhile, Karkaroff gives him a Three with a scowl on his face. One point less than the previous timeline, Harry wryly notes. All to make sure Harry got an even forty points, same as his precious Krum.
While it’s absolutely ridiculous, Harry doesn’t care in the slightest. Because even as his total point score is announced, he’s made eye contact with Fleur Delacour and can see from one look at her face that he’s already beaten her score this time around. And won their wager.
Well now, wasn’t that fun? Heh… now all Harry needed to decide was whether it would be more fun to go and talk to her right now while the victory was fresh, or leave it be and make her sit and stew in her loss until eventually her own pride forced her to come and confront him later.
Ah. Such hard choices he found himself having to make in this new timeline, heh.
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[X] Don't approach Fleur himself, force her to come to him on her own time - 91%
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