Link to prev chapter: https://theowlhouse.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000000190300
Luz was training with Amity, there was a huge skill gap against her in this tournament, so if she wanted to have any chance of winning, she needed to train as much as possible.
It was dark out, it was nearing midnight. Luckily, no one had thought to check if there was anyone in the Quidditch Pitch at night, so they could work as hard as Luz needed.
Suddenly, she heard a roar coming from the forest, which distracted her long enough for Amity to get a solid hit in.
Luz yelped in pain at the Abomination goop that hit her.
“Sorry Luz, but you didn’t block it!” Amity apologized.
“Sorry, I got distracted, I think I heard something coming from the woods.” Luz told her,
“Let me guess, you want to go see what caused such a loud noise.” Amity said,
“Of course I do,” Luz admitted, “I somehow get the feeling that it’s important,”
“Well, just don’t hurt yourself. Okay Luz?” Amity told her.
“I’ll be careful, don’t worry,” Luz told Amity as she left the field and started going to the forest.
“Hey Stringbean, I think we could do with some invisibility right about now.” She told her power noodle, who happily obliged. Luz drew the spell circle in the air with her staff, and she suddenly became as transparent as the air around her.
While approaching the forest, she heard another roar, then a faint flash of light deep in the woods. Having now heard this roar twice, she quickened her approach.
When she finally reached the source of the sound, she saw that it was coming from dragons! Five of them! Each was being attended to by seven or eight witches, who seemed to be very overwhelmed by the sheer power of the dragons.
One dragon was silvery-blue with long, pointed horns. Another was leafy-green and smooth-scaled. A third was ruby-red with a bit of gold around its face, it was shooting a giant mushroom-shaped fireball at the sky. Another still was much larger than the others, and blacker than the midnight sky, it was much more lizard-like than the others. The final one was copper-colored and much smaller than the rest, though that didn’t seem to make it any easier to handle.
Suddenly, Hagrid and Madame Maxime, or who Luz assumed were those two, walked right past her, narrowly avoiding her. Somehow, someone or something knocked her over anyways, removing her invisibility spell.
Luz scrambled to get the spell back, but to no avail. Hagrid had noticed her.
“Luz? What are ya doin’ out here?” The giant asked softly, as if he knew just how much trouble she would get in and wanted to avoid it. “You should be in bed! It’s after midnight!”
“Uh, I heard a noise in the forest, and I went to investigate. I figured out what the source of the noise was, and now I’m just trying to get back to bed!”
“Wanderin around the forbidden forest at night is a great way to get yerself killed, what were you thinkin?” The giant said to her. Luz started to get red from embarrassment. Then she finally managed to get the invisibility spell working again. Stringbean is such a good little power noodle.
“Do all the champions got invisibility or summat?” Hagrid asked under his breath, finally continuing his walk with Maxime.
Now who knocked me over? And what did Hagrid mean by all of the champions having invisibility? Did one of the other champions knock me over while invisible? Luz wondered, approaching the dragons.
“Keep back there, Hagrid!” one male witch yelled, straining on a chain he was holding. “They can shoot fire at a range of twenty feet, you know! I’ve seen this Horntail do forty!”
“Is’n’ it beautiful?” Hagrid said softly, Luz could see the appeal, but not when she was starting to get the feeling that the first task was to fight one of these things.
On the count of three, all forty or so witches pulled out their wands and shouted “Stupefy” at the dragons, Luz had no idea what Stupefy meant, but it sure seemed to have an effect. The large black dragon nearest her collapsed on the ground so hard she swore you could have felt it in Hogsmeade.
“What breeds you got here, Charlie?” Hagrid asked, gazing at the nearest dragon with a look of almost reverence.
“This one’s a Hungarian Horntail,” The witch, whose name Luz supposed must be Charlie, said, “there’s a Common Welsh Green, that one’s a Swedish Short-Snout, that red one’s a Chinese Fireball, and that tiny one is a Peruvian Vipertooth.”
“I didn’t know you were bringing her, Hagrid,” Charlie said, frowning. “The champions aren’t supposed to know what’s coming. She’s bound to tell her student.” Luz was right, that’s not very comforting.
“Jus’ thought she’d like ter see ‘em” shrugged Hagrid, still enamored at the sight of the beasts.
“Five…” said Hagrid, “So it’s one fer each o’ the champions, is it? What’ve they gotta do? Fight ‘em?”
“Just get past them, I think,” Charlie said, that was a relief, “We’ll be on hand if it gets nasty, extinguishing spells at the ready. They wanted nesting mothers, I don’t know why… but I tell you this, I don’t envy the poor ones who get stuck with the Horntail or Vipertooth. The Horntail is about as dangerous on it’s front as it is on the back. And the Vipertooth can fly at speeds pushing one fifty kilometers an hour.”
Luz, relieved that she wouldn’t have to actually fight the dragon, just get past it, decided to go back and train a bit more with Amity.
Upon returning to the Quidditch pitch, she found deserted.
“Amity?” Luz called, “Are you still here?”
“Two naughty students out of bed? Oh, dear, dear. That won’t do at all!” A cranky old voice said. The source was an old man with a significant hunchback. “That’s a detention all right!” He said with concerning enthusiasm.
“You can’t discipline me, I’m not a Hogwarts student!” Luz said, not entirely believing her own words.
“Yes I can, young lady. You’re on Hogwarts grounds, and you’re a student, that puts you under my discipline when you’re caught out of bed at night.” He said enthusiastically, “I’m sure you’re wishing your friend here hadn’t been making so much noise, eh?”
Amity looked at Luz with disappointment in her eyes, “Luz, I’m-”
“Amity, you didn’t do anything wrong, it was my idea to have us train here in the middle of the night.”
“Well, regardless of who’s to blame, you’re both getting detention!”
The old man grabbed both Luz and Amity by the collar and carried them into castle.
At Midnight, Harry met Hagrid at his cabin, just as he had asked. The grounds were very dark, but he could hear something loud was deep in the woods.
“Are ye there, Harry?” Hagrid’s deep voice bellowed as he looked around.
“Yeah,” Harry answered as he slipped inside the cabin, “What’s up?”
“Got summat ter show yeh,” Hagrid answered.
Hagrid seemed very excited. He was wearing a flower in his buttonhole that looked more like an artichoke. Luckily, Hagrid had stopped attempting to grease his hair, but he still had tried to comb it; Harry could see the broken teeth from the comb knotted in with his hair.
“What’re you showing me?” Harry wearily replied, hoping it wasn’t that the Blast-ended skrewts had laid eggs, or that he had bought another three-headed dog off of a stranger in a pub.
“Follow me, an’ keep yerself covered with that cloak,” said Hagrid, “we won’t take Fang, he won’ like it.”
“Listen, Hagrid, I haven’t much time, I have to be back at the castle by one o’clock,”
Hagrid wasn’t listening, he was busy opening the cabin door and walking in the direction of the Beauxbatons carriage.
Hagrid knocked three times on the door. Unsurprisingly, Madame Maxime answered it. She smiled when she saw Hagrid.
“Bong-sewer” Hagrid said in the most broken French Harry had ever heard. The two giants held hands and walked into the forest, Harry did his best to keep up.
The walk seemed to take forever, Harry was becoming increasingly frustrated at the clear waste of time when he fell over, must have hit a tree I didn’t see Harry thought, but it soon became clear that wasn’t the cause of his collapse, as Luz Noceda, the Hexside champion, became visible.
“Luz? What are ya doin’ out here?” The giant asked softly of her,. “You should be in bed! It’s after midnight!”
(The scene continues as it did in part A)
“How’s Harry?” Charlie asked.
“Fine,” said Hagrid, still fascinated by the dragons
“Just hope he’s still fine after he’s faced this lot,” Charlie grimly replied, “I didn’t dare tell Mum what he’s got to do for the first task; she’s already worried sick about him.”
“How could they let him enter that tournament, he’s much too young! I thought they were all sade, I thought there was going to be an age limit!” Charlie said, imitating his mother, “She was in floods after that Daily Prophet article, He still cries about his parents! Oh, Lord bless him, I never knew!”
Harry had seen enough, and he figured that Hagrid wouldn’t miss him since he was occupied by Maxime and five dragons, so he decided to head back up to the castle for his meeting with Sirius.
Harry didn’t know how to feel about seeing the dragons. Perhaps it was better this way, the first shock was over. If he’d seen the dragons for the first time on Tuesday, he probably would’ve passed out from shock in front of the whole school. Maybe he would anyway. He was going to be armed with only his wand, which felt more like a stick in his hand than a powerful tool of magic.
Harry sped up, he had just under fifteen minutes to get to the common room. He couldn’t remember ever wanting to talk to anyone more than he did then. Suddenly, he ran into something-or someone- very solid.
Harry fell backward, his glasses barely stayed on his face.
“Ouch! Who’s there?” a nearby voice said. Harry hastily checked that the cloak was still over him and he laid very still, staring up at the dark outline of the wizard he had hit. He recognized the goatee from a mile away, Harry had bumped into Karkaroff.
“Who’s there?” Karkaroff repeated, looking around in the dark fruitlessly. Harry remained very still until after a minute or so, Karkaroff seemed to have decided that he had hit a rock or something, then Karkaroff continued on his way.
Harry took the opportunity to get back to the castle.
Since Maxime and Karkaroff were sure to tell their champions about the dragons, and Harry had seen Luz; that meant that Cedric would likely be the only one who didn’t know about the dragons.
Harry slipped up to the portrait, he had less than five minutes to get to the fireplace.
“Balderdash!” Harry gasped at the Fat Lady, who sleepily swung open. Harry climbed inside and luckily found it deserted.
Harry threw off the invisibility cloak and sat in one of the armchairs. He saw that the Creevey brothers’ attempts at making the Support Cedric Diggory badges change allegiance were still far from correct, as they were now stuck on saying POTTER REALLY STINKS. Harry looked into the flames, and jumped.
Sirius’ head was sitting in the fire, nearly scaring Harry out of his wits. When Harry had reassessed the situation, he broke into the first smile he had for days. Harry crouched down by the hearth, and said, “Sirius, how’re you doing?”
Sirius looked different than he had the previous spring, when Harry had seen him last. Instead of being very gaunt and having long, matted hair; Sirius’ face was much fuller, and his hair was short and neat. He looked about fifteen years younger, more like he had in the only picture Harry had of Sirius, which was from the Potters’ wedding.
“Never mind me, how are you?” Sirius asked very, well, seriously.
“I’m…” For a second, Harry tried to say fine, but he couldn’t bring himself to do so. Before he could stop himself, he was talking more than he had in the past week; about how no one believed he had not entered the tournament freely, about Rita Skeeter’s deceitful article in the Daily Prophet, about how he couldn’t go down a hallway without being sneered at, and about Ron, Ron not believing him, Ron’s jealousy.
“... and now Hagrid’s just shown me what’s coming in the first task, and it’s dragons, I’m a goner, Sirius.” Harry finished desperately.
Sirius looked at him, his eyes full of concern, those eyes had not yet lost the look that Azkaban had given them; that deadened, haunted look. He had let Harry talk himself into silence without interruption, but he finally replied, “Dragons we can deal with, Harry, but we’ll get to that in a minute, I haven’t much time. There are things I need to warn you about.”
“Such as?” Harry asked, his mood somehow getting even worse.
“Karkaroff,” He said, “He was a Death Eater. You know what Death Eaters are, right?”
“Yes, wait, Karkaroff was?”
“He was caught, he was only a few cells from me in Azkaban, but he got released.” Sirius told him, “I’d bet a million galleons that’s why Dumbledore wanted an Auror on staff this year; to keep an eye on him. Moody put him in Azkaban the first time.”
“He got released?” Harry asked slowly, his brain struggling to keep up.
“He said he had seen the error of his ways and he named a bunch of Death Eaters that had gotten away, they were put in to take his place. A lot of people in there hat his guts.” Sirius explained “From what I’ve heard, he’s been teaching the Dark Arts to every student that goes through that school of his, so watch out for the Durmstrang Champion”
“Are you saying Karkaroff put my name in the Goblet of Fire?” Harry asked.
“I don’t think so,” said Sirius, “But whoever did had a reason, the tournament seems like an easy way to attack you and make it seem lake an accident.”
“Looks like a good plan from where I’m standing, they just have to stand back an let the dragons do their thing.” Harry said, grinning bleakly.
“Right, dragons.” Sirius said, speaking quickly now, “don’t be tempted by a stunning spell, there’s actually a very simple spell that’ll do the-”
Harry held up a hand for silence. Harry could hear footsteps coming down the staircase behind him.
“Go.” he hissed at Sirius, “There’s someone coming!”
Harry scrambled to his feet, hiding the fire. If someone saw Sirius’ face in the castle… Harry didn’t want to imagine that chaos.
Who had decided to take a stroll after one in the morning? Whose fault was it that Harry had to stop Sirius from telling him how to get past a dragon?
It was Ron.
“Who were you talking to?” he said.
“What’s that got to do with you?” Harry snarled, “What are you doing down here at this time of night?”
“I was just wondering where you-” Ron stopped himself. “Whatever, I’m going back to bed.”
Harry knew that Ron had not intentionally interrupted his conversation at such a pivotal moment, but he didn’t care; at that moment Harry hated everything about Ron, right down to the several inches of bare ankle showing beneath the trousers of his three-sizes-too-small pajamas.
“Sorry about that,” Ron said, his face getting red with anger, “Should’ve realized that you didn’t want to be disturbed. I’ll let you get on with practicing for your next interview in peace.”
Harry grabbed one of the POTTER REALLY STINKS badges off the table and chucked it straight at Ron as hard as he could. It bounced right off of his forehead.
“There you go,” Harry said, “Something for you to wear on Tuesday. You might even have a scar now, if you’re lucky. That’s what you want, right?”
He strode past Ron and went upstairs; he half expected Ron to stop him, part of him wanted Ron to throw a punch or something, but Ron just stood there in his too-small pajamas, and Harry, having stormed upstairs, lay awake in bed for a long time, fuming. He never heard Ron come up to bed.
