1,371A/N: Here it is, guys, and all I can say is... wow. Hundreds of people (literally hundreds) reviewed or PMed me saying they were interested in this, so all I have to say is: thank you all so much. I've got so much that I want to do and change with this new version, but I also want to keep the core elements that made this story what it is. I've got a reasonable amount written in advance, which should get me through the semester, and then my winter break is incredibly long due to COVID, so there will be some pretty frequent updates. For the foreseeable future, I plan on updating 1-2 times a week.
All right, I think that that's it for housekeeping, so enjoy!
It was the day of the first task. The champions' tent wasn't too bad, Harry supposed, as he paced back and forth between the thin fabric walls. It was what was waiting for him on the other side that was the problem. Really, if it weren't for the dragons, it would have been a lovely day. Tournament aside, he, Hermione and Ron would have probably been sitting under some trees near the lake, he mused. Maybe they'd see the great squid— Harry rather liked the squid. Sometimes Harry would wave and the squid would wave back. He was good-natured that way. He? Or was it she? It?
The whistle blew. He snapped out of his panic-induced inner dialogue and took a deep breath. "Hermione, I hope you were right." He muttered before stepping out of the tent to face his dragon. He immediately ducked to the left and took shelter behind a boulder, which he was grateful for less than a moment later. Flames blew past him on either side, and he mentally thanked whatever deity was out there for the reflexes he had developed after years of enduring Dudley's Harry Hunting. After all, what good would a broom do if he were bacon by the time it arrived?
He was just about to summon his Firebolt when he heard something. At first, Harry thought it was the rock sizzling from the dragon's fire, but there was something distinctly… syllabic about it. It sounded like someone with a very slight lisp had been given a megaphone. He glanced at the judges' panel, but none of them were speaking. That was when he realized how familiar that lisp was- he had only ever heard an accent like that a few times before, and they were never from humans. He glanced around the rock to confirm his suspicions and immediately jumped back as another jet of flame whizzed by.
It was the dragon. He'd had no idea that dragons could even speak parseltongue, but it did make sense in a way. Small reptiles could speak to him, so why not big fire reptiles with wings? Honestly, he wasn't even surprised at this point.
The dragon was not happy. "What is the meaning of this? Why have I been bound?" The dragon roared and pulled at the chain binding her in the arena. "You will not have my eggs!" Her voiced wavered slightly on the word eggs, and Harry then had a realization. The dragon was a sentient being, and she had no idea what was going on. From her perspective, she and her eggs had been kidnapped and chained to the ground in a giant circle of humans. She was like him- it wasn't her fault that she got tangled up in this mess, and he was about to do something that was probably extremely stupid. Hermione was definitely going to yell at him later, but his heart had softened at the sound of that waver in her voice. He did the only thing he could think of to get her attention
"I COME IN PEACE!" He bellowed over his rock, waving his arms wildly. It wasn't the most dignified way to start a conversation, but hey, he was only a fourth year and he didn't know the sonorous charm yet.
The dragon's head whipped toward him, and the crowd gasped. Harry found himself significantly closer to her than he had ever planned on being, and her massive head was now only about three feet away from him. But she didn't touch him, nor did she say anything. She just stared at him with unblinking golden eyes.
Harry was pleasantly surprised to note that he wasn't dead yet. And, since things seemed to be going pretty well so far, he decided to press his luck a little further. He stepped out from behind his epic rock shield and put his hands up in the universal (or at least he hoped it was universal) sign of peace. "No one will hurt your eggs."
She kept looking at him for what felt like years, but was probably only a few minutes. "You know my language." It wasn't a question.
"Erm, I guess. This just sounds like English to me." Way to go Potter. Real smooth.
But thankfully, the dragon didn't seem to mind. She sniffed him, and then her demeanor shifted from anger to a sort of focused intensity. "What is your name? Why am I here? What business do the humans have with my eggs?"
Harry was silent for a moment as he tried to figure out how to explain the Triwizard Tournament. "I'm Harry. Well, Harry Potter, but you can call me Harry. Right. Erm, a lot of humans are... prideful creatures. They like having competitions to see who is the strongest. This is one of those competitions, and the task is to get a fake egg from a nesting dragon, such as yourself, as fast as possible, because your kind is strong and fast and extremely difficult to defeat." He finished, trying very carefully to not offend her.
She continued to look at him for a moment before blinking and shifting to what looked like a more comfortable position. "My name is Smaragdus Ignis. You may call me Ignis. You sound as if you do not wish to partake in this contest, yet here you are. Why?"
Well, she liked to get to the point. Harry sighed, "Someone else entered me in this Tournament against my will."
"An enemy?"
"You could say that."
She was silent for a moment more, before she seemed to come to another decision. "Lay down your death stick, and I will not stand in your way. Fetch the fake egg, Parva Corvum, but do not touch the others."
"My death stick?"
"Yes. The other humans used them to bring me here, and I will not have them near my children again." Harry hesitated for a moment. "You said time was of the essence, is it not?"
Harry slowly nodded. This was either going to be brilliant, or incredibly stupid, but either way he was going to do it. He carefully held out his wand so that Ignis could see it, and then he gently set it down on what had very recently become his favorite boulder. There were gasps all around, and then the entire stadium went dead quiet.
"Proceed."
Harry couldn't believe his luck. He was alive, and it looked like she was going to let him stay that way. "I- Thank you. I can't even imagine how awful this must be for you, so thank you for listening instead of setting me on fire or roasting me alive or- you know what? I'm going to stop talking now." He knew he sounded ridiculous, but his nerves were kind of shot at this point.
Ignis snorted in what seemed suspiciously like amusement. "Later, after your celebrations, you will visit me and explain to me this competition. I would like to know more about why we were pulled from our nests."
Harry smiled. That was a significant improvement versus how their conversation had started. "Thank you for your kindness. I will gladly visit you later." He replied as he carefully jogged further into the arena and grabbed the golden egg. He turned toward the exit, but just before leaving the arena, he turned back and waved to his new friend.
As soon as he got out of the arena Harry was bustled off to the medical tent by Madame Pomfrey. "What were they thinking? Honestly, dragons!" She muttered before proceeding to check him over. She frowned and took a step back. "Right then, where's the damage, Potter?"
Harry smiled at the confused matron, "I skinned my knee when I ducked behind a rock, but I don't think that there's anything else."
She stared at him with her signature blank look, but the small tick at the corner of her mouth gave her away. She sighed, "Never in all my years have I had a student as simultaneously danger-prone and absurdly lucky as you." She handed him a small vial of salve for his knee and patted his head before going back to attending the other champions. Harry smiled as she walked away. Normally, the rather stiff and formal matron would never be so casual with a student, but the end of his second year, when Harry had spent hours and hours in the hospital wing with Hermione while she was petrified, plus the ridiculous amount of time he spent in the hospital wing as a patient, had broken through her formal exterior a long while back.
Harry was then tackled by a mass of brown hair which, after careful analysis (read: coughing as it got in his mouth) he identified as Hermione. "Harry! That was amazing. I was so frightened when you didn't summon your broom, but then when you started speaking I realized what you were doing and oh, how could we have been so dense? Dragons and snakes are both reptiles and there have been known cross-breeds between certain magical breeds of snakes and smaller dragons, so it would make perfect sense for there to be a shared or similar linguistic components and-" She paused to catch her breath, and gave him one more quick squeeze before releasing him from the hug. "I'm just so glad you're alright."
"Yeah, me too." He laughed "Wanna head back in to the arena to see the scores?"
She looked at him for a moment before shaking her head and laughing as she fell into step beside him. If she may have reached up to brush away a tear or two, well, Harry wasn't going to mention it. "…You're absolutely insane, did you know that?"
"Yeah. I had a feeling you'd say that."
"Prat."
"Know-it-all."
"Scar-head."
"Ouch, now we're taking a page out of Malfoy's book?"
She sniffed and put her nose up in the air in a strangely accurate imitation of the blond. "My father will hear of this disrespect, Potter." Harry laughed. It was good to fall into their familiar banter, even if there was still one person missing. He looked around just in case, but no luck. He had hoped that maybe after the first task, Ron would come to his senses. However, the lack of redheads in the immediate vicinity made it very clear that that ship had sailed.
Once they made it into the stadium, the two friends climbed up into the Gryffindor section where Harry was met with whistles, cheers, and too many handshakes and slaps on the shoulder to count. Even though these were the same people who had been shunning him up until just a few hours ago, it still felt good to get validation from his house. It felt sort of like coming home, and Harry grinned at his apologetic dorm-mates.
Seamus was the first to notice the scores going up. "Bloody hell, Harry look at the judges!"
He did, and was pleasantly surprised by what he saw. Madame Maxime went first, awarding him a very large 8, Bagman gave him a 10, Dumbledore a 9, and Crouch another 8, while Karkaroff gave him a 4. When people booed at him for this Karkaroff yelled right back. "He vas supposed to fight the dragon, not have a nice chat vith it!"
Dumbledore had to shoot several fireworks out of his wand to get the crowd calm enough for Bagman to announce the final scores.
"Even with Karkaroff being a cheat, that's loads better than the others did, mate." Dean elbowed him before Bagman's sonorified voice boomed across the stadium.
"Attention, ladies and gentleman! In fourth place, with a time of 24 minutes and 14 seconds and a score of 32 points, is Cedric Diggory of Hogwarts." The applause from the Hogwarts section was deafening, and Harry was glad to hear it. Cedric had had the least preparation time of all the champions, and he deserved the support. Bagman continued "In third, we have Viktor Krum of Durmstrang with a time of 19 minutes and 56 seconds and a score of 34 points, and Fleur Delacour of Beauxbatons in second with a time of 21 minutes and 40 seconds and a score of 35 points. Even though Mr. Krum's time was shorter than Miss Delacour's, he was penalized for destroying his dragon's real eggs." There was a mixture of cheers and boos when this was announced. Clearly, not everyone was happy with this decision. "And last, but most definitely not least, in first place, with a time of 7 minutes and 28 seconds and 39 points, is Harry Potter of Hogwarts!
Chapter 2 Spoiler: The Twins v. McGonagall. Who would win in a drinking contest?