Chereads / Harry Potter: Unleashed - By: Karmealion / Chapter 24 - Chapter 22 - The Storm

Chapter 24 - Chapter 22 - The Storm

I don't own anything related to the Harry Potter franchise

Author's Note:

This chapter is massive and took quite a while to clean up, because it was/is extremely chaotic and busy. .

Author's note 2:

Just a reminder that I nerfed the Wingardium Leviosa spell in this story in regards to lifting witches and wizards by making it extremely inefficient and difficult to achieve. I wanted to avoid having super powerful Harry throwing all of his enemies and obstacles around with just a single wave of his hand.

When the sun started beaming in through the illusionary windows of Fleur's bedroom, relentlessly pouring crisp morning sunlight directly onto her eyelids, the French Veela's circadian rhythm pulled her out of unconsciousness, at which point she noticed something interesting about her current arrangement. At the moment, she was laying directly upon the silk sheets covering the mattress of her bed… where the night before, she fell asleep curled up atop her husband…

Of course, Fleur knew that her mate was close by, due to the care and affection cocooning her entire body via his aura shroud, which was why she was merely curious about what the man was currently up to. His intentions were hidden behind a powerful mind Occlusion at the moment, but his amusement was not, and it was making her curious…

Taking her time so that Harry would derive the most enjoyment out of his big reveal, Fleur rolled onto her back and then sat up on her bed… That's when she saw the creature sitting just inches from her toes, where it was staring up at her with its tongue lolling cutely out of its slightly-parted mouth.

The bond was thick with Harry's self-satisfaction as the animal cutely nuzzled its nose against Fleur's legs, playing the part of the highly affectionate pet.

"Ohhhh - my - Gods, you are sooo adorable," Fleur slowly whimpered out, as the creature bounced right and left in a playful fashion and then wiggled its face in between her knees. It was too much, too adorable, and Fleur felt her cheeks slackening as she curled her upper-body forward in its direction…

After padding in between Fleur's newly opened thighs, the creature pawed gently at her stomach and pressed its nose against her cheek.

With a helpless sigh of explosive adoration, Fleur started running her hands along the animal's soft and fluffy sides, burying her face down into its preternaturally glossy fur. "'Arry... you always have the best surprises for me," she breathed into the animal's neck, before she giggled in response to the licking her neck was receiving.

Without a single ounce of hesitation, Fleur hugged the creature close and cuddled the living hell out of it, until finally she and her 'newly an Animagus' husband were forced to move on with their day.

After breakfast in the Great Hall came daily training in the RoR, where Fleur and Harry changed up the pace for a few hours by breaking out the Potter Grimoire… The Potter Grimoire was chock full of variants of normal spells, but it also contained several dozen originals that weren't in circulation for the general public. These spells were all designed to sound unintelligible, defy diagnostic spells, and just generally be a nightmare to reproduce by anyone that wasn't a member of the Potter family. The most common characteristic of the spells contained in the Potter Grimoire were that they required an order of magnitude more magical power than would normally be required, and were quite difficult to pull off.

Thankfully for Harry, Fleur had been studying all of the spells in the Grimoire the entire time that he was catching up on everything else, which would once again allow her to demonstrate how the spells are supposed to be performed with a preternatural level of effectiveness…

While pulling on quite a bit of her mate's magical power to generate the oomph that she needed, Fleur mustered up all of her will and intoned the spell, "Aguamantia Dragonis!" Immediately after, a seven-meter-long and two-meter-thick water dragon spiraled out of her wand, careened across the room, and then smashed into the heavily-warded wall. The wall took an unbelievably powerful blow, as several tons of water smashed into it all at once, leaving behind spiderweb cracks all along the magically reinforced stone that quickly started mending all by themselves.

"Oh wow," Harry breathed out, as his wand traced the air in an exact recreation of Fleur's movements. "Send fire Funnel Spears in my direction now, I dare you…"

Turning towards her husband, Fleur adopted an expression of comically embellished disapproval upon her face. "Flame freezing charm, 'Arry. You are not a hammer..."

When Fleur's stern demeanor almost instantly melted to reveal a grin of amusement instead, Harry smiled back at the woman and held her close in the bond.

"This next spell is an adaptation of the spell to restart a person's heart using electricity," Fleur explained after easing up next to Harry and leaning against his side. "What do you think it does to the target now?"

"No way," Harry breathed out, a wolfish grin on his face. "Tell me we aren't sending out lightning bolts with our wands! I'll have a fit."

"Fine then... I won't tell you," Fleur replied, rising amusement in her voice. "Fulgar Interius," she intoned, launching a blue spell from the tip of her wand that didn't look like much at all... until it hit the wall and every amp of electrical charge within the surrounding area rushed into a very small space as if it was being compressed. The blue ball of power quickly grew to the size of a basketball before it lost its shape and exploded outwards with a large crack and the smell of ozone.

"Best day ever," Harry exclaimed into the silence that followed the spell.

Since any one of the spells that Harry and Fleur were casting would use up well over a third of the magic contained in a normal wizard's core, and because they'd been casting these powerful spells one after another all morning, Harry was recouping his magic using ambient heat. In the far corner of the room was a large vat full of boiling lava, from which Harry was drawing excess energy into his body. Truth be told, the odds were good that he could power all of these spells using only his core magic, but it definitely would've been a strain, and it wouldn't have provided any benefit at all. The fact of the matter was, Harry could increase the size of his core simply by funneling extra energy into it from outside sources, filling it beyond capacity and stretching it over time… He needn't exhaust himself in the fashion that normal wizards such as Cedric did every single day…

It was almost enough to make Harry feel guilty… almost… but in the end, he refused to even entertain the idea for two important reasons. One, he was in a huge hurry to catch up to the skill level required by the tournament, and he didn't have the time to entertain naïve notions about fair play in training. Two, he didn't want his wife to hesitate to do the exact same thing to her core using his magic (not that she would. Fleur was waaay too practical for that)...

Back in the present, Harry was currently looking at a deep penetration prefix to spells that might be surprisingly useful. It made any spell that it preceded become intangible for a moment just as it hit its target. According to the book, the spell couldn't go through a magical barrier such as a Protego or a Ward Barrier, but if it was cast at a solid object, the spell would activate in the center of mass instead of on the surface…

Without a word, Harry summoned a three meter diameter rock sphere on the far side of the room, and then he pointed his wand at its smooth polished surface. "Altum Confringo," he intoned, his diction picture-perfect, exactly as Fleur described... A normal looking implosion curse flew towards the sphere, made contact with its surface and vanished within its mass...

BOOM!

In an event that happened so fast Harry almost missed it even though he was watching carefully, the entire sphere violently buckled inwards well over a foot on every side before exploding outwards like a bomb.

"Holy Gods" Harry exclaimed as he and Fleur erected Protego shields to keep a spray of super-fine rock-dust from slamming into their bodies... "The power cost to make the spell intangible was massive, but the results..."

As the heaviest of the rock-particles settled all over the room, Fleur walked up to Harry's side and they both stared at the remaining dust that was floating in the air.

"By having the implosion spell occur deep within the stone instead of on the surface, the resultant pressure increase was several times stronger than it would normally be," Fleur remarked, giving voice to their thoughts.

"If this is the Potter Grimoire and we're the happy go lucky, harmless family... I have legitimately no idea what kind of crazy stuff the Peverels got into." Even as Harry said all of that, he removed the rock dust strewn everywhere with the RoR's magic, and then eased down onto a couch that was waiting nearby.

Nodding her head, Fleur sat on Harry's right, but not before Accio Summoning the list of spells that Harry was working through from a nearby table. "I think we should put the Grimoire away for now, and work more on your spell diversity for simple and useful things. I don't think we'll need to be Battle Mages for tomorrow's event."

While nodding his head, Harry shrank the Potter Grimoire down to the size of a postage stamp, before stringing it back on a necklace he was wearing. "The skill I really need to practice is Apparition, but the wards of the school won't allow such things... I'm still embarrassingly loud."

While giggling at the memory, Fleur kissed her husband's cheek and then leaned against his side. "Loud doesn't matter, as long as you show up where you need to be with all of your limbs intact. I will be displeased with you if you lose an arm, a leg, or any of your other - vital - organs," Fleur purred as she slowly ran her hand up her husband's thigh. "Now... back to work, 'Arry. We shall have you prepared for every obscure use of magic known to man by the time we go to bed tonight."

"Harry!... Fleur!" All of the sudden, Hermione Granger was standing in the doorway to the RoR, looking as if she'd sprinted all the way from Hogsmeade..

"Yes, Mione," Harry called out while bouncing to his feet and loping across the room.

"The weighing of the wands is today, in preparation for tomorrow's first Mini-Task. It appears that all of the Champions are needed outside of the Entry Hall!" Having delivered her message with a single lungful of air, Hermione leaned forwards on her kneecaps, drawing in deep lungfuls of lifesaving oxygen.

"Why are they springing this on us last second?" Harry was pretty confused by the lack of forewarning, but then again it was Dumbledore that they were talking about, so maybe he shouldn't be.

Having packed up their belongings using a flurry of Summoning spells, Fleur jogged towards the entrance of the room, where she smiled at both Harry and Mione. "To be fair. I eemagine our 'Eadmasters deed not zink eet would be zis 'ard to find us."

Harry nodded his tenuous understanding, and offered Fleur his arm. "Shall we, my lady?"

"Oui, yes, let's," Fleur replied with a grin. She also went out of her way to link arms with Hermione, which won her major brownie points from her husband.

As Harry, Fleur and Hermione marched out of the RoR, and descended the stairs towards the Entry Hall of the school, Hermione explained how she became their messenger. Apparently, an official came looking for Harry in Slughorn's potions class, leaving her little choice but to run up every flight of stairs that Hogwarts has to offer.

Of course, after hearing of all of the effort his female friend just went to on his behalf, Harry asked Hermione if she wanted to attend the wand weighing ceremony with him and Fleur as a guest. He reasoned that she'd been released from class to show them to the W.O.W (weighing of the wands), so that's exactly what she'd do.

After an inner debate that both Fleur and Harry could easily see occurring on her face, Hermione finally smiled and agreed that she'd like to see what all the fuss was about. Not even a minute later, the three of them walked through the Entry Hall, where they saw a rather large tent and some media outlets waiting outside…

Both Fleur and Hermione laughed at Harry, when he very visibly had to muster the will to confront the media again.

"Confident and self-assured," mocked Hermione.

Harry just sighed audibly, and linked arms with Fleur, before walking into the tent.

A visibly relieved looking Madam Maxine was standing with Ministry officials Ludo Bagman and Bartimius Crouch, along with both Jeremy and Adam from the Prophet. Harry was immediately frustrated however, because there was one more so-called 'journalist' present in the tent, across the room with the rest of them... Rita Skeeter, in all of her acid green wearing glory, was standing around as if she owned the place, while donning a press pass that read Teen Witch Weekly.

Harry instantly forewarned Fleur that the woman with the gaudy glasses and the openly sly grin on her face, was the one who wrote the nasty article about them, and that Andromeda provided him a picture of the woman while specifically warning him to keep her at a distance.

Somewhat predictably, Fleur's face turned frigid for just a moment as she stared at the woman's profile, but her features quickly softened again and she thanked him for the warning.

As Harry, Fleur and Hermione stood around waiting, all of the other participants arrived seemingly all at once. Cedric showed up first, joining them with a smile, at which point Francine, Chadwick, (that is his name right?) and Krum followed suit, entering the tent with Karkaroff at their backs.

Arriving fashionably last as per the norm, Dumbledore entered the tent with Mr. Olivander, the wand crafter, and every eye tracked in his direction as his enthusiasm seemed to fill the entire tent.

Harry hadn't seen Olivander since he'd bought his wand, but the little man hadn't changed in the slightest in the time since he was there.

"Excellent," Dumbledore exclaimed, when he saw that everyone had already assembled. "We have invited a guest judge to determine the fitness of your wands for competition, and there's none better to do so than celebrated Wand Crafter Mr. Olivander. After that, there are still two Champions that have yet to meet with any representatives from the media, which is why the journalists present will want to get to know you..."

Harry was relieved he wasn't expected to give further interviews, despite the fact that he didn't have any issues with Adam and Jeremy, and had enjoyed what they wrote.

Thankfully, the journalist's main focus for the day appeared to be Krum, Francine and Chadwick.

Once you divorce the Weighing of the Wands from all of the pageantry that Dumbledore was trying to inject into it, the ceremony was rather mundane and businesslike. Harry did learn that Cedric is in the habit of polishing his wand every single night (Harry almost made the joke, but Cedric gave him a pleading look, so he kept it to himself) and Fleur's wand contained a hair from her own grandmother's head (pretty damned cool). Of course, Mr. Olivander couldn't seem to stop himself from alluding to the fact that Harry's wand was somehow special, which meant for the following minute Harry felt Fleur rooting around in his memories.

In the end, the most interesting part of the entire ceremony was when everyone found out that super conceited and haughty Francine Petit, was using a wand containing a Kneazle whisker core. Apparently, Kneazle whiskers are a rarely used teaching core, designed to be used by nine or ten year old wizards, because they take almost no skill at all to use. The Kneazle whisker has the unique characteristic of drawing in ambient power from nearby sources, and for that reason It's a key component in powering a lot of magical devices. While at first, the idea of having a wand that can add its own power to your spells sounds like a good idea, in reality it's not. Kneazle cores aren't in wide circulation anymore because children that use them tend to become dependent on them, never strain to strengthen their own magic, never learn the importance of fundamentals, and thus, never reach their full potential.

Alarmed that someone was stunting their growth to such an enormous extent, Olivander immediately offered to sell Francine another wand at a pittance... It hadn't worked. Francine stubbornly held onto her wand and wouldn't even consider trading up….

Just as Harry, Fleur, Hermione and Cedric left the wand weighing tent, Harry pulled Cedric aside, where he explained in hushed tones who Rita Skeeter was, and that she was the one who wrote the infamously rude newspaper article.

After briefly looking annoyed on Harry's behalf, Cedric smiled and nodded his understanding... Andromeda had vetted who they should trust with interviews and Rita Skeeter most certainly wasn't on the list. Now forewarned about her actual appearance, the boy marched out towards the journalists and the photographers that were swarming in their direction..

The photography portion of the afternoon was a nuisance, because everyone needed to be in a photo together and Fleur flat out refused to stand anywhere near Victor Krum. It ended up looking like the tournament contained two distinct camps. The right side camp contained Cedric, Harry and Fleur while all of the other champions grouped up on the left. Harry did end up in the middle of his friends this time and he had his arms thrown over both of their shoulders (down Fleur's back not on top). The various Headmasters, Ludo and crouch were all staged at their backs because Madam Maxine was secretly standing on her knees (she was still taller than Karkaroff even on her knees).

Predictably, Rita Skeeter did attempt to grab Harry, Fleur and Cedric for an interview, demonstrating a lack of shame that almost made Harry laugh. Also predictably, they all mercilessly stonewalled the woman, informing her that she'd have to go through their agent, Mrs. Tonks, if she wanted to arrange a meeting.

Rita ended up backing off as if she'd been burned at the mention of Andromeda, but she also gave them all extremely hateful looks for the remainder of the proceedings.

a little less than two hours after arriving in the tent, Harry, Fleur, Cedric and Hermione departed the ceremony, went back to the RoR, and trained together for the remainder of the afternoon.

The morning of the first Mini-Task arrived with a gray stillness that somehow felt appropriate under the circumstances. The weather seemed to convey that Fleur and Harry's lives were on hold until the Mini-Task was completed, at which point they could continue moving forward. Despite the oppressive quiet heralding an approaching storm, Harry and Fleur woke up early without the assistance of an alarm, and then sought comfort in each other's arms as the morning advanced.

Kissing Fleur's neck, Harry rubbed his wife's belly, from his position as big spoon at her back. Then he had a thought and found himself whispering it through Fleur's hair. "I wonder how the other Champions feel right about now? Unlike them, we have each other for support."

"Yes, we are blessed," Fleur quietly replied, while snuggling back into her husband's arms. She leaned back to look up into Harry's eyes and she sensed the moment he took an arrow to the heart. "Skip your training today, 'Arry. Stay with me."

Harry smiled softly at Fleur's super cute request and kissed her temple in response. "I never even thought of leaving you alone this morning, Fleur, and in fact, I've been meaning to try out this rather impressive bathtub of yours... I keep sneaking out of your room in the morning, still a mess from the night before…"

After turning and wiggling herself deeper into Harry's body, Fleur wrapped her arms around his waist in a possessive fashion. "It was all part of the plan 'Arry…"

"The lightning bolts are basically gone nowadays," Harry agreed.

Fleur merely nodded, a self satisfied smile on her face.

Without a word, Harry eased sideways into his back, pulling Fleur along to cover him like a blanket.

Neither Harry nor Fleur made a move to leave Fleur's suite of rooms until they absolutely, positively, needed to.

Breakfast was a quiet affair for everyone involved, mostly because all of the conversations that took place happened in whispers and were paired with many covert glances in the Champions' directions…

In a gesture of school solidarity, Fleur was asked by her headmistress to sit with her school, which didn't actually matter all that much as they were communing in the bond as if they were just inches from each other... That didn't mean Harry couldn't take in his surroundings however, and he scanned the Hall as he chewed his way through his breakfast. When Harry looked in their direction, Krum and the other guy (what is his name again) were staring back at him with intensely satisfied looks upon their faces. On the other hand, Francine's expression was a mixture of determination and rising nausea. Cedric was surrounded by all of the Hufflepuffs and Cho, who were visibly determined to keep him occupied. Likewise, Neville and Hermione were sticking close to Harry himself, while his teammates were completing a somewhat looser orbit.

Everyone was nervous with the exception of the Durmstrang students… Knowing what he knew about Karkaroff's avoidance of the oaths not to help his students, Harry wasn't surprised.

Up in the rafters of the Great Hall, the sky had broken out in heavy rainfall, and most everyone sitting at the tables were being affected by the gloom of the weather... On days like this, Harry had no idea why you would subject moody teenagers to a downpour at breakfast...

"I'm going to be okay," Harry repeated once again into the silence of his table. "By three Pm at the latest, we'll all be in the room, having a barbecue and goofing around, no biggie."

Fred and George were the only ones in the group who were visibly convinced. The rest of Harry's friends looked like they were really trying to act the part however, so Harry continued smiling for their benefit.

The Daily Prophet arrived and did in fact have Bio pieces on Chadwick (the newspaper helped Harry remember the boy's name again) and Francine, but the bio's were brief and forgettable. On the other hand, Lavender handed Harry a copy of a rather dramatic Teen Witch Weekly article. The article featured the photo of the champions with Harry and Fleur cut out to look like they were alone. The two of them were hugging tightly to each other and gazing at each other in extremely cute ways. Harry knew that this was just the Weighing of the Wands photo, that contained all of the champions, and the three of them playing around, but the cropping made it look like he and Fleur were having an extreme PDA moment.

Skeeter's article was centered on Harry and Fleur's relationship, outlining Rita's commitment to getting more info on the notorious pair, and the dramatic events surrounding their super-sordid love affair. Harry shook his head at the word choice 'notorious,' and committed once again to never speak to that woman. On the other hand, he didn't bother contacting Andromeda about the article, because his lawyer slash sports agent would already know about it, and if the words 'notorious' and 'sordid' were enough to file a suit, then the woman would already be filing it.

As breakfast came to an end, Dumbledore walked up to the lectern in front of his chair (throne), where he addressed the student body.

"A wonderful morning to you all," Dumbledore began, while his eyes were doing that twinkle thing that they tend to do during these moments. "It's lovely weather for a nice stay in, and that's exactly what we have in mind. The first Mini-Task will be this afternoon, in this very room, which is why we've been charging the Rune stones that allow this room to become larger for several days in a row. When you arrive here for lunch, you will find that the Great Hall has become quite a bit bigger, because it will be surrounded by a large set of stands. When you have completed your lunch, feel free to wander over to the student reserved seating, so that we may all watch the first Mini-Task together... However... There will be stands to my right, left and behind me, (He gestured to the wall behind the lectern he was standing at) that are designated as being for the viewing public and press. The occupants of these stands will be coming from all over the world to see this, and I've been told that getting tickets for this venue wasn't cheap. The area you are all occupying right this second, will be the stage for the Mini-Task…. It should be a real humdinger," the elderly man added at the end, once again proving that being weird on purpose isn't an easy task.

With his explanation delivered, Dumbledore sat back down on his throne, and breakfast was allowed to resume.

While Knockturn Alley is well known as the home of some of the seediest businesses in all of Magical Britain, what it's also known for is its overabundance of both gambling dens, bars, and brothels.

It was in one of these gambling dens, a well-hidden and little known dive-bar by the name of the Hidden Card, that Reginald Harkenen awaited news of his most recent pet project, with a few new 'friends' sitting at his side and a wizarding wireless resting atop a nearby table.

Not only was Reginald going to have Harry Potter killed by the end of the first Mini-Task, but he was going to bet a fortune on the outcome of the event and rake the local riffraff that he was sitting with out of all their unearned wealth.

Just a few days prior, Reginald managed to make contact with the team of professional Monster Hunters that the Triwizard Tournament Committee contracted to proctor the first Mini-Task, and he gave them an offer that no sane man can refuse.

Wealth. Absolutely absurd amounts of wealth if the proctors manage to straight up kill the boy in the execution of their duties…

Yes indeed… Harry Potter was walking into an ambush that he wouldn't even be allowed to defend himself against… and Reginald Harkenen was going to recoup the cost of his efforts by fleecing the locals to within an inch of their lives…

The morning dragged by at a snail's pace, but eventually it was lunchtime, and Harry felt like he was sitting on pins and needles, as he ate the magically fortified lunch that Dobby cooked for him, Fleur and Cedric.

Which made sense.

Harry was currently being stared at from all sides, as absolutely every student sitting in the Great Hall speculated about his chances...

Which also made sense.

Harry stood out from the rest of the robe wearing student-wizards sitting at his sides, because he was wearing a tight black Hogwarts Quidditch team t-shirt and shorts combo, exactly like Cedric was over at the Hufflepuff table. The only difference between the two outfits was their respective house emblem on the short sleeves, exactly like their Quidditch uniforms.

Nearby on Harry's right, yet another group of students finished their meals, and then made their way towards the stands surrounding the four house tables, where they met up with a steady stream of random wizards that were arriving from all around the world…

The Great Hall was exactly that right now. It was great in size, with layers of stands surrounding the normally existing floor space. In fact, the stands were so large, there was enough room for the entire three school population and just as many guests…

Long story short, around three thousand people would soon be crammed into the Great Hall, where they would watch the event unfold...

Harry, Fleur, Cedric, Francine, Chadwick and Krum didn't bother rising out of their seats as the rest of the student body drifted towards the stands. The Gryffindor contingent all gave Harry back pats and hugs as they walked away, and many other students offered platitudes of one kind or another. Hannah quickly ran up to hug Harry's side before she made her escape from the public eye, and Cho patted his arm in a friendly fashion after detaching herself from Cedric's side. Shy, little Bella quickly ran up and wished him well in a flurry of very fast words, before Disillusioning herself completely. Harry laughed and then smiled at where he knew the very gifted and equally shy younger girl was standing, before giving her a thank you in return.

Not everyone was so gracious or friendly however… Harry was informed that he was doomed or was a dead man walking by male students of all the different houses, but mostly Slytherin and Beauxbatons who said it in French (did they not know that he was fluent?). Likewise, Ron cut his thumb across his neck as he quickly walked by, as apparently he didn't have the bravery to talk shit to his face anymore. Harry just shook his head in amusement at that, and then turned his attention back towards his meal.

Abruptly, Fleur sent Harry a projection through the bond, a mental image of how cool she thought he looked just sitting at his newly empty table in his tight fitting uniform seemingly without a care in the world… While Harry knew for a fact that his wife was merely seeking to distract his thoughts from his haters, he immediately conveyed back his enjoyment of her outfit in return, as she was currently wearing a skin tight, pale-blue and royal-blue, wyvern-hide catsuit with the pink Beauxbatons emblem over her heart, and she was sporting her hair in a very long and elaborate braid.

In an odd but welcome turn of events, Fleur currently looked like a particularly sexy video-game and comic-book character that Harry was familiar with through one of Dudley Dursley's pinup posters. The stunning French Veela was currently a dead ringer for Zero Suit Samus from the Metroid franchise, only perfected beyond any artist's ability to draw, and with a platinum tint to her shiny blonde hair…

While enjoying every second of the appreciation and excitement that her husband felt in response to her uniform, Fleur empathically explained that it was commissioned by Madam Maxine in response to the danger level rising in the tournament. During the pep talk slash situation report that she'd received earlier that morning, Fleur had gleaned that at first, today's event was supposed to be rather simple, but over the course of the last month, it had snowballed in complexity, until finally Madame Maxine started seeking rule-abiding ways to safeguard her Champions.

The rules regarding a Champion's uniform stipulated that it couldn't contain magical cores, magic bolstering tools or magic negating elements inherent within its material. For that reason, dragon and basilisk-hide clothing were banned because they both had properties that diminished all but the most powerful varieties of magical attack. On the other hand, the fact that wyvern-hide clothing was among the best protective equipment in the whole entire world simply due to its sheer unrelenting durability wasn't a problem in the slightest.

In the end, despite her earlier compliment, Fleur was concerned that Harry's school was making him wear nothing more than a t-shirt and shorts, and she felt guilty that she was so comparatively protected by the garment she was wearing.

For obvious reasons, Harry felt differently… He was happy that Fleur's Headmistress actually cared about her survival, and he was relieved that she was being offered an extra layer of security… On a side-note (and mostly as a distraction), he also went out of his way to point out that Fleur's fellow Beauxbatons Champion, with her much shorter stature, was NOT making the catsuit work for her in the slightest…

Francine Petit currently looked like a smurf.

Around the time that Harry and Fleur finally stopped giggling within the bond, Harry caught sight of the Delacour family walking into the room. Appoline, Adrien and Gabrielle, climbed up several layers of stands as they moved across the Great Hall, and then dropped into a seat within the visitor section of the stands... Of course, Gabrielle immediately started bouncing around in her seat while looking around the Great Hall in wide-eyed wonder, and it was all just too damned cute to be real.

With the intention of testing out the waters in regards to Adrien Delacour, Harry stared up at the fam until they looked back in his direction, and then he gave them all a wave. Then he smiled from ear to ear when all three Delacours, including Adrien, waved back in his direction, and Fleur empathically hugged him in response to the profound relief she felt leaking from his mind Occlusions…

Abruptly deciding it was time to multitask, Harry rose to his feet, and collected Cedric, to complete some stretching as they waited. He also prompted Fleur that she might do the same, and she immediately saw the sense in it. By the time Dumbledore was standing at his usual lecturn in front of the visitor section, the three of them were stretching along the right side of the Gryffindor and Hufflepuff house tables.

With a hand raised up above his head, Dumbledore gestured for everyone to quiet down, but the over-excited chatter filling the Great Hall resisted the man's silent persuasion and continued unabated for almost half a minute longer... Then, when everyone was finally settled down and waiting for the man to speak, Dumbledore abruptly began levitating the four enormous house tables up in the air and Banish spelling them in the direction of the Great Hall's doors.

In a surprise twist from the norm, It was Mr. Crouch who stepped forward to address the newly quieted audience. "Good afternoon everybody, and welcome to the first Mini-Task of the Triwizard Tournament. We, on the tournament committee, debated over what the first Mini-Task should be for quite a while... It was difficult to choose because of how many options we had available to us. We eventually decided that the focus of today's event would be on spell diversity and problem solving. The specific area of expertise will be countering area of effect spells."

"Damn," Harry muttered under his breath, as Cedric gave him a quick look of commiseration, and Fleur failed to prevent the sudden concern she felt from leaking into the bond.

Crouch continued undaunted, unaware or uncaring about the blow he'd just dealt to Harry's calm. "Each of our contestants shall pull a number out of a sack, to see who goes in what order, and then everyone but the first to compete shall exit the Great Hall to wait in the Entry Hall. One by one, the other Champions shall enter the Great Hall, where they will be confined in a dueling platform on one side of the Hall. From the other side of the Hall, our esteemed guest proctors shall work together, to cast powerful area of effect spells into the dueling platform. There will be a very large variety of different problems that these A.O.E. spells will cause, from the merely inconvenient, to the highly dangerous. We, the Tournament Committee, highly suggest the Champions negate these spells as much as possible, as they fly in their direction. The proctors will be intoning all of their spells slowly and out loud and they will be lobbing them slowly through the air, so if the Champions have been diligent in their preparation, they should know what the spell is as well as how to counter it. The Champions will not be allowed to magically shield or Disillusion themselves at any point during this Mini-Task, and in fact, the barrier will not allow either of those spells to function. Neither are they allowed to carry any variety of physical shield in their hands. This is an evaluation of your skill with a wand, so it will be your magic that's put to the test."

It was hard to say with the government functionary's thick glasses obscuring his eyes, but Harry was reasonably certain that Crouch just spent his entire explanation staring in his direction.

Somewhat belatedly, Crouch's head swiveled right, left and back to center as he briefly scanned the other contestants, and then continued his explanation. "During today's event, we shall also have two volunteers casting stunning spells at regular intervals, in order to keep the Champions on their toes. There will be two stages of difficulty regarding stunners, during this event. If the Champions negate all of the area of effect spells entering the platform, then they won't have to dodge more than three stunners a minute. Every time the Champion in question (Crouch began looking at Harry again) allows an area of effect spell to land, the chosen volunteers will begin casting many more stunners their way. The two volunteers will at that point, be actively trying to knock the competing Champion unconscious, and they will continue doing so until the Champion in question negates the next area of effect spell, at which point they will revert back to casting three spells a minute. Any Champion who lasts the entirety of the ten minute event, with no Magical mishaps or injuries, will get the most points available. Any Champion who struggles, is injured, knocked unconscious or forced out of the designated area, will lose points for those things respectively. There will be a maximum of twenty-five points available, to the champion who does the best during this Mini-Task. The points will be split in half or quartered, in cases of a tie or multiple ties…"

Even as Crouch was saying all of that, Dumbledore was manipulating a series of overlarge amulets to erect a very large, very strong, vaguely yellow tinged, cube-shaped spell barrier, on the Entry Hall side of the Great Hall. This barrier would contain all of the spell effects that they were about to cast inside of it, so that the audience could watch the chaos from extremely close range.

Harry's ambient magic was halted at the perimeter of the barrier, which meant that he wouldn't be able to eavesdrop on any of the other competitors. Thankfully, no ward scheme or magical barrier had yet to succeed in choking off his and Fleur's bond, as it was far too powerful, obscure and arcane for that. In order to stop their empathic connection, you'd need to know about it way ahead of time, and even Dumbledore wasn't aware of how strong it actually was.

It was in that moment however, that the reality of his current situation fully sank in.

Harry Potter knew dick-all about countering curses.

Curse Countering is a seventh year, Auror geared curriculum, and Harry hadn't had time to study it yet. Neither he nor Fleur had been all that focused on him learning that particular skill, in the face of all the other spells they'd thought were far more important… Harry could erect and maintain extraordinarily strong magical shields, which allowed him to stop most curses without having to directly counter them.

Long story short, Crouch, (the robot) had just calmly declared that Harry wasn't allowed to use his only reliable form of defense, just moments before shoving him into a shooting gallery…

Needless to say, Fleur was becoming extremely worried for Harry now, as he was at a massive and obvious disadvantage. It was as if this Mini-Task was specifically designed to take advantage of her husband's shortcomings before he could do something about them. While Fleur was excellent at Spell Countering and she was quite willing to share her knowledge through the bond, the spells would be moving too fast for even instantaneous communication to convey intonation, wand movements and magic manipulation in time to negate the spell…

As Fleur's thoughts washed over him in the bond, Harry resigned himself to simply dodging the spells, and then countering their physical effects to the best of his ability. On the bright side, no one expected him to be able to counter these spells, and he'd never be able to explain how he'd learned four years of Arithmancy in just a few weeks if he did.

Looking over at Dumbledore, Harry saw that the man looked extremely frustrated… At the very least, the man knew that Harry was being screwed over…

While continuing to Occlude his anxiety, Harry looked around the stands, taking in the audience. There were a lot of concerned witches out there looking back in his direction, but there were also quite a few extremely happy young wizards in the stands, smiling at his imminent embarrassment.

Harry's friends (huddled behind a massive Hogwarts banner) all looked extremely nervous for him at this point, causing him to give them all a very wolfish and feral looking smile as he returned to his stretches and jogged on the spot. He wanted to convey to his friends that while this so-called 'Mini-Task' would definitely require a lot of physicality, giving up was the very last thing on his mind…

Fred and George immediately started smiling from ear to ear, before they abruptly turned back towards a large group of happy looking Hogwarts boys that were sitting in the row behind them and started waving a coin purse up in the air.

Gods bless them… It looked like Galleons were about to be exchanged.

Hermione and the rest of the Gryff girls looked resigned to the chaos that they assumed was about to happen.

Neville and Selene were just grinning, because they appeared to think Harry would be fine.

Bella was sitting next to Neville and Selene, with a Delacour/Potter banner in her hands, sporting a massive heart in the middle. The younger Beauxbatons girl looked as if she might have a heart attack any second.

Finally, with the barrier in place, it was time for the Champions to pull their numbers out of a sack that Ludo Bagman was holding. Walking up in line with everyone else, Harry dropped his hand into the bag and retrieved the number five. The order of appearance in the Mini-Task would be Chadwick, Krum, Cedric, Francine, Harry, and finally Fleur. Everyone but Chadwick, walked out into the Entry Hall to wait, and the doors slammed shut at their backs.

"Why do you look so damn confident Potter?"

Harry forced himself not to sigh in long suffering, as a contemptuous female voice rang throughout the cavernous Entry Hall, and then echoed back from the ceiling.

"Just look at you, bouncing around, and stretching, as if any of that will do you a lick of good," Francine pointed out with a derisive scoff, a sneer, and an oddly pale complexion upon her face. "You wouldn't know how to counter A.O.E. spells, even if you had all damned day to do so."

Harry only very slowly turned to regard Francine, and when he did turn around, he simply stared at her for several moments before he finally replied. "I don't know how to counter any variety of spells or curses. I won't bother denying that, because it's a fact. I'll still beat you Francheska for one very important reason… Unlike you, I haven't already given up…"

"Given up? I haven't given up," Francine stutter/shrieked, her composure slipping in the face of her outrage.

"Is scaredy Kneazle a term in the wizarding world, like scaredy cat is in the muggle world," Harry abruptly turned to ask his friends…

At first, Cedric and Fleur merely laughed, because they hadn't expected Harry to land upon a kneazle jab in such a tense situation... Then they both did a double take on Francine's face, because now that they were looking, the short French witch really did look terrible.

Belatedly, Fleur remembered that spell countering was far from Francine's favorite subject, and she fed that information into Harry's mind even as she confirmed aloud that, "yes, scaredy kneazle is a term used by children all throughout the magical world…"

After glancing across the Entry Hall towards the bored looking government official that was babysitting the Champions, Francine growled in frustration and lifted her hand away from the wand holster that was wrapped around her upper thigh… "I can't wait to visit you in the hospital wing," she said instead, before stalking across the room with her hands balled into fists at her sides.

Not long after Francine's departure, at about the six minute mark, the crowd suddenly went wild beyond the doors to the Great Hall, which likely meant that Chadwick was eliminated from the event. Harry wondered how hard the Mini-task actually was, given the fact that Chadwick had been forewarned about what the Task would involve, and yet that hadn't saved him from failure... Up until now, he'd assumed that since the proctors were Bulgarian, they would give the boy a little leeway, but that obviously wasn't the case.

In the moments that followed, Ludo Bagman entered the Entry Hall, approached Krum, and gestured for the boy to precede him back into the Great Hall.

The following ten minutes went by very slowly, during which time Cedric alternatively looked confident and anxious, and spent a lot of time walking to and fro.

"The reason why you put your name in the Goblet is because you want to prove to the world that a Hufflepuff can know every damned spell out there, and then make up some of their own," Harry abruptly whispered to Cedric when his pacing brought him close enough to hear. "You're ready for this Cedric, which is the reason why you were chosen in the first place."

Cedric smiled and then nodded as a fire grew in his eyes that wasn't there before.

When Krum's task came to an end at the ten minute mark, loud cheering erupted from within the Great Hall, Ludo returned to collect Cedric, and the boy moved with purpose, showing none of the nervousness that was hindering him before…

Exactly ten minutes later, both Harry and Fleur smiled, because the cheering for Cedric was impressively loud even with a three-inch-thick door muffling the sound… Their friend had obviously survived the entirety of his first Mini-Task.

Soon enough, Ludo Bagman returned to collect Francine Petit, who sneered at Harry and Fleur as she marched out of the room on visibly shaky legs.

"Four minutes," Harry predicted.

"Three," replied Fleur.

As it turns out, they were both half right, because at almost exactly three and a half minutes the crowd went wild, and Francine had been taken out (Fleur was a few seconds closer than Harry). Harry planned to get a Pensieve memory from the twins, which was an idea that greatly pleased his wife...

Any second now it would be go-time, so after pacing into the middle of the room, Harry started bouncing on the spot while manipulating Aethir around his body in playful little circles. It was painfully obvious that he was going to need whatever help the little wind sprite could give him over the next ten minutes, so he started communing with her in the arcane way that they communicated, letting her know exactly what to expect. When that was accomplished, Harry turned back towards Fleur, and addressed her again in the bond. "Wife... please observe through the bond and give me whatever warnings you can offer. I'll take it from there."

Fleur immediately nodded, sending an, "of course," back through the bond.

Fleur drew close, Harry hugged the woman, they kissed, they pressed their foreheads together.

Entering the room, Ludo gave Harry a very meaningful look when the boy turned in his direction. "It's time Harry... Are you prepared?"

"Nope. Not at all," Harry confidently admitted.

In reaction to Harry's ultra-honest response, an appalled expression bloomed across Ludo's face, and he may even have looked a little bit sick to his stomach.

After Occluding all of his unneeded emotions so that he could look as casual as possible, Harry walked through the Entry Hall doors, and stood within the threshold of the Great Hall as the doors slammed shut at his back. He was all business and ready to go so far as attitude went, and he even felt a pleasant flow of adrenaline coursing throughout his veins, which was an unexpected boon. On the other hand, he couldn't quite figure out if he'd be better off with his magic inside of his body offering him faster reflexes or outside of his body providing extrasensory perception. Both options had pros and cons but after a brief inner debate, he decided to start with his aura shroud outside of his body. The shroud would be able to provide Fleur intel about the spells flying at him, and if that wasn't working, he could always pull all of his magic back in, and hulk out.

Fleur's amusement started drifting around Harry's thoughts at the idea of hulking out, as at the moment, her consciousness was dwelling more on his side of the bond than her own. She was along for the ride, determined to observe everything that he did, and ready to offer what advice she could provide. After realizing just how involved his wife would be, Harry felt as if he had a guardian angel on his shoulder. Then, when his wife experienced that thought in real time, she started empathically fussing at him, in a way that transcended the physical.

In the end, as Harry stood just inside the doors to the Great Hall, a genuinely happy smile bloomed across his face, as if he was just another spectator taking in the grandiosity of the event. His eyes slowly panned upwards, as he took in the platform, the stands, the thousands of spectators ringing the room, and then the increasingly dramatic thunderstorm that was developing overhead. Backlit by flickering blue arcs of electricity and partially obscured by an illusory downpour, three thousand exceptionally loud witches and wizards cheered in response to Harry's arrival, and an unseen guest announcer struggled to make himself heard despite the powerful Sonorous spell that was cast upon his voice.

"Now entering the Great Hall, Hogwarts' very own Harry Potter, AKA Lord Potter, AKA Seeker Assistant Captain Potter, AKA the hottest thing Teen Witch Weekly has seen in a loooong time! He is by far the youngest champion in this tournament at only fourteen years old, and according to hundreds of eye witnesses, he performed a magically binding oath that he did NOT enter his name into the Goblet! A lot of the ladies in the stands seem to agree that he cuts a fine figure, and doesn't look like he's only fourteen. Sadly, that won't change the fact that he's at a huge disadvantage, both today and in this tournament! Many people are wondering how Harry will fair in the very advanced spell countering category. Keep in mind that Harry's only a fourth year student, and the class to begin learning this stuff is offered in seventh year! The betting pool seems to believe that young Potter is going down hard, but what we're looking at isn't the face of a boy who's given up. Let's get a yes or no nod out of the boy in question. Did you master counter cursing in the last two weeks, Harry?"

In response to the announcer's question, Harry smiled cheerfully, even as he shook his head in a clear negative and shrugged his shoulders. There was no use denying it after all. He hadn't learned even one counter for spell-fire yet, let alone strong area of effect spells. He barely understood the skill, because it's essentially a mixture of dueling with advanced Arithmancy. It's a very difficult maneuver that can go wrong in a big way if not executed properly. If you hit a slowing spell with the wrong counter, boom you make an explosion. If you hit a tickling charm with the wrong counter, boom you make an explosion. If you hit an explosive spell with the wrong counter, boom you make a mess of anything within about thirty meters. Harry knew without even having to debate the fact that he wouldn't be attempting any counters today, because they definitely weren't a skill suitable for amateurs.

Ninety-nine percent of the people in the audience were stunned at the two massively conflicting images that Harry was portraying at the moment... Despite readily admitting that he was completely clueless about the skill required to navigate the task, the boy was smiling confidently and was visibly willing to go ahead with the event.

"Well that's… a thing," the announcer continued, sounding completely baffled. "I'm sure that all of you are extremely confused at this point, and rest assured, I'm right there with you! Despite the fact that Harry openly admits he isn't familiar with Spell Countering, he sure looks like he's ready for anything now doesn't he? I suppose only watching the task will answer any of our mounting questions."

Walking forward at the judge's prompting, Harry entered the platform. Then, while passing through the barrier, he was briefly forced to pull all of his magic back inside of his body, so that he wouldn't leave it behind. As he took his place within the barrier, the Bulgarian proctors walked up, and stared at him with no discernable emotions visible on their faces. Then, entering unexpected from stage left, Draco Malfoy and Theodore Nott walked up, and were introduced as his volunteer stunners. Harry merely smiled at that, because of course they were…

Harry's mental sigh of long suffering was interrupted when Mr. Crouch called over for his attention.

"Are you ready Mr. Potter?" Crouch was straightening the cuff of his sleeve as he spoke, clearly conveying the fact that Harry's preparedness meant absolutely nothing to him.

After just barely nodding in response to Crouch, Harry smiled wolfishly at Draco and Theodore. He adopted a loose but prepared stance with wand in hand, as Crouch approached a large gong near the judge's table.

Gonnnng!

As the signal to start the Task reverberated around the Great Hall, the Bulgarian proctors glanced meaningfully at each other with an eerie resolve in their eyes, and then lined up in spellcasting formation with their wands moving in perfectly choreographed unison. At exactly the same time, they began amassing titanic amounts of magic while chanting the words, "Obaeresco Adfigo" (stuck trapped affixed) aloud, casting a large, net-like, web of Runes in the air, before hurling it in Harry's direction far faster than merely a lob…

While Harry did hear Fleur empathically yell out the words 'Feet-Trap-Runes' it was already far too late for him to respond. He'd already leapt to try to avoid the red tracery lines of the spell, and his feet were just then returning to the floor. With a crack, the platform underneath him radiated with a bright red light, and a ward scheme was firmly in place in a circle around his feet. Harry yanked on his feet and surprise, surprise, he couldn't move them off of the ground even a millimeter. Instantly and in a massive hurry, he pointed his wand down towards the floor to begin unraveling the trap ward scheme, while relying on his magical shroud to keep an eye on Draco and Theodore's spells.

Eager to get started, both Draco and Theodore immediately started casting stunners at Harry as quickly as they could.

While moving with the agility and swiftness afforded him by Aethir, Harry completed a limbo lean back and under the first red spell, before straightening again, and leaning right to dodge aside the second. Then, as a third stunner flew at his feet, Harry Transfigured a thin rock wall in front of himself to block the following spells, and he continued chipping away at the complex and enormous ward scheme beneath his feet.

The Proctors had been molding their next spell for the past thirty seconds, so without having to wave their wands at all, they sent it off as the perfect partner to the first one. "Arbor Cresceler," (rapid growing spiky woods) they intoned together, causing a green carpet like spell to be lobbed towards the area surrounding Harry's body.

"Rapid, sharp, thorny, plant and tree growth, 'Arry. The spell pools on the ground like water," Fleur yelled directly into Harry's metaphysical ear in her anxiety, before backing off, as she felt her mate twitch at the strength of her message. Nonetheless, she felt her husband's gratitude, as he prepared to fend off this next attack.

Due to the fact that the Proctor's newest spell wasn't moving anywhere near as fast as the first one, Harry was more prepared this time, and he moved to improve his situation. Using Transfiguration, he quickly raised a large circular platform beneath himself, so that both it and he would be above the area affected by the tree growth spell. He rose four feet above the platform, and by happy accident Draco and Theo's continued rain of stunners hit the rock column below him. His plan also worked, as Harry ended up on a circular disc of stone, well above the green carpet covering the lower platform.

Armed with Fleur's warning, Harry knew that the cutting greenery spell would grow towards him and burrow through any defense that he created, so he banished away his Transfigured wall to get it out of the way, gathered yet more magic power, and called out his first offensive spell. "Ignis Maxima," Harry loudly intoned, as he began sweeping his wand in full circles, casting out waves of extremely intense flames that were just barely on time to intercept wide swaths of razor sharp foliage.

Due to the fact that Harry's feet were still stuck to the ground beneath him, he was forced to limbo backwards and then straighten his body over and over again, in order to swing his wand in complete circles. He had no choice but to continuously send out the flames, because the trees and weeds weren't slowing down at all, and were swamping towards him every single time he wasn't incinerating them. Almost immediately, Harry was completely surrounded by burning greenery, and yet he had no choice but to continue with the spell. With a growl of frustration, Harry increased the strength of his fire spell so that it had concussive force, and the flames that he was casting began pushing all of the greenery away from his body.

When a view of Potter finally opened up because of the force of his fire spell, both Draco and Nott immediately sent in tandem stunning spells.

In all of the confusion, Harry barely noticed the red spells in time, and was forced to wandlessly Summon a thick tree branch to intercept them. Finally, after an exhausting forty-five seconds, the impaling branches slowed, and then stopped growing altogether, and Harry was left covered head to toe in soot and ash, but he was finally free to move and think again.

Looking back down at his feet, Harry began unraveling the Rune trap as quickly as it could be done without wasting more magic than the trap was actually worth. The process repeatedly had to be put on hold, because once again, team Slytherin douchebag had started casting consistent stunners at him. On three separate occasions, Harry's eyes were ripped away from the Runes at his feet so that he could Accio summon tree limbs in the way of incoming stunning spells, at which point Harry erected yet another stone wall between himself and the Slytherins. Up until now, he'd been reluctant to waste magic on the Snakes, but now he knew for sure that he had no damned choice in the matter.

Once the wall was completed, Harry was finally able to turn his entire attention back to the ward scheme.

His reprieve wasn't going to last very long…

"Undaqua Subrigo," (wave water arise) the proctors called out, sending a dark blue spell flying Harry's way like a shotgun blast, once again, moving way faster than a lob.

"Water everywhere," Fleur yelled out through the bond, real and unfeigned fear injected in her voice. She was freaked out as all hell, at the very idea that she might get submerged… but right away she could sense that her lover was nowhere near as concerned.

Harry didn't even bother turning away from the ward scheme that he was working on as the blue spell sailed past his right shoulder and slammed into the floor. He continued unraveling the Feet-Trap-Runes, even as the A.O.E. Spell landed, and massive quantities of water started geysering out of the ground. A literal wave of water forced Harry to sway like a tree in a hurricane before knocking over his Transfigured wall and rapidly rising up over his head. With only the time to perform a quick bubble head charm, Harry was completely submerged by the rapidly rising water line, at which point he was forced to cast a powerful Lumos spell in order to see what the hell he was doing within the dark, soot-filled water.

As the waterline climbed closer and closer to the top of the cube-barrier, Harry continued to work on the ward scheme affixing him to the floor, while on the lookout for the constant stunners that were flying in his direction. It appeared that aiming at him through the murky water wasn't an easy task, because several curses bubbled by without Harry having to do anything about them at all. Unfortunately, the Lumos that he was performing was giving away his location, and eventually at least two of the stunner spells were heading directly towards his legs.

Reluctantly, Harry gave up on the Runes at his feet once again, but he cursed out the Slytherins the entire time for keeping him hemmed in for as long as they had. In answer to their spells, he Conjured a large multi-layered school of brightly colored, bioluminescent fish and he had them swim in between himself and Draco in what amounted to a solid wall of glowing fish flesh. It was an enormously magical and power costly move, but Harry needed light just as much as he needed room to work, and he didn't have the time to perform more than a single spell.

The fish instantly paid off when they began getting pegged by the stunners flying in Harry's direction, and floating towards the surface of the water, during which time Harry finally managed to unravel the Feet-Trap-Runes, at which point it failed in a bright red flash of released power.

With his feet newly freed from the platform, Harry began swimming further away from team Slytherin, creating space, while circling the remaining fish around his body. Water slows down most weak spells to about half their original speed, which was helpful because Harry still wasn't the most accomplished swimmer in the world…

"Just look at him go," the announcer yelled out, in a thoroughly captivated and enthusiastic voice that managed to permeate even the cube full of water. "Well, we wanted to know what young Lord Potter had in mind, and now we know! He's obviously hoping just to survive the task by out-badassing it! Just now, he was tearing apart a ward scheme, while burning down a forest, while blocking stunner spells, while erecting stone walls and a podium to stand on! He just Conjured an entire school of glowing fish to protect his body from yet more stunners, and provide light as he released himself from that Foot-Trap-Spell! I have never seen anything like this in my life!"

The watching audience was extremely silent at this point, just staring down at the cube shaped barrier and the flood of Conjured water that was beginning to vanish from existence.

"Congelatio Stratum," (Freezing Blanket) the proctors intoned in guttural unison, casting a light blue spell, to fly towards the rapidly lowering water line.

"Get out of the water," Fleur instantly screamed within the bond, completely unconcerned about Harry's metaphysical hearing anymore. Harry needed to move, and he needed to do it now!

At his wife's panicked scream, Harry hastened to obey as if the water had suddenly turned into acid. Even as he Conjured a large raft on top of the water, he yelled out the intonation "Carpe Retractum." Then, when the magical lasso that Harry had created tried to pull the raft downwards towards his body, it instead yanked him up towards the surface of the water at extremely high speeds.

Harry was hauled up towards the surface of the water like a torpedo, which of course tore apart his bubble head charm, submerged his face in churning water, and forced him to observe his surroundings via his aura shroud. A split second later, when he neared the surface of the water, Harry very quickly pulled all of his magic back into his body, and then used the extra muscle strength provided to yank himself a few meters into the air.

He was just in time.

Immediately after Harry's left foot exited the water, the light blue A.O.E. spell sank into the barrier, where it instantly froze hundreds and hundreds of tons of water into a rock-hard cube of ice.

During the time that he spent dropping back down towards the ice, Harry completed a wandless drying spell on himself, and Transfigured his shoes to have ice picks protruding from their soles. Then, when he finally did crash down upon the huge ice cube, Harry immediately rolled out of the way of two incoming stunner spells from the Slytherins. He slid to the side until he finally found purchase with his spiked shoes, rolled to his feet and then slammed his feet into the ice to create firmer footing. That's when he heard an alarming sound, and instantly regretted his last decision.

The problem with being on top of a hundred tons of Conjured water that's been frozen into ice, is that it's still Conjured, which means it'll still disappear when it's time is up.

Due to Harry slamming his foot down onto the ice, that time was now.

All of the sudden, there was an implosion somewhere below Harry's feet, and the enormous ice block that he was standing on shattered into millions of pieces.

During the second or two that Harry spent careening down through a blizzard of scattered ice crystals, he focused both his wand and his attention on the platform directly beneath him, Transfiguring a column of rock up to meet his falling body with every scrap of urgency that he could muster.

Despite the fact that Harry's Transfigured column grew extremely quickly, he still dropped a little less than five meters, and his only saving grace was that he still had his entire magical shroud contained inside of his body. Without having preternatural strength and resiliency to rely upon, he'd have ended up with a broken body on top of his Transfigured column. As things stood however, Harry just barely managed to land in a superhero crouch that spider-web cracked some of the rock directly beneath his feet.

Ouch. That hadn't been pleasant.

Right now definitely wasn't the time to have an injury, so even as Harry slowly straightened to his feet, he began circulating as much magic as he could spare through his legs to address the damage he'd just taken to his knees and ankles. It was another waste of magic that he really needed to avoid, but still… Harry didn't have the leeway to limp or favor an injury at the moment. In the end, he was still stranded on top of a tall, thin column of stone, completely isolated in the middle of the barrier. He also still had Malfoy and Nott throwing curses his way with impunity. Case and point, Harry hopped and then crouched to dodge team D bag's tandem stunning spells.

The announcer was still having a great damned time, and yelling his already magically amplified words, in his enthusiasm. "Harry Potter is using common magic in ways I have never even heard of before! He just used a magic lasso spell against a fixed object to fly high into the air! I'm also blown away that he managed to Transfigure himself a stone column while falling to his death! The kind of concentration needed for that would be immense! This is waaaay more fun than if Harry was able to directly counter the spells!"

"Angustaregio," (Dizziness affected area) the proctors loudly intoned, releasing a pink spell to careen into the barrier, where it splashed against Harry's podium.

Harry recoiled from the spell as if the proctors had landed a physical blow to his head, and then he swayed where he was standing like a drunkard at three Am.

Draco and Theo both took advantage of the fact that Harry was off balance by casting an extra intense volley of stunning spells. They released half a dozen stunners, within just over two seconds, and then paused to watch them fly.

After catching sight of the stunning spells flying towards his face and upper body, Harry tried to dodge to the side. Too bad his coordination was currently non-existent, and he fell right off of the podium as a result.

In the split second following Harry's drop off the side of the podium, he abruptly realized that all he needed to do to get rid of his current dizziness was make good use of his Mindscape. In the split second that followed, Harry recognized the dizzying sensation within his mind, negated it behind his Occlusion barriers, and then addressed the fact that he was once again falling to his death.

Wingardium Leviosa or the common levitation spell doesn't work well on wizards, as some part of their magical animus interferes with the process until the spell is cast over a dozen times simultaneously. With that knowledge in mind and time running out, Harry was going to need to think outside of the box if he didn't want to make a bloody mess of himself upon the stones below. He recruited Aethir to help with this next effort, because the spell he was about to use was usually only used in greenhouses (thank the Gods for Neville loving Herbology). It was a spell to increase the density of air… and it had definitely never been used like this, or cast as powerfully as Harry was about to cast it.

"Caeri Soludis," Harry screamed out, with his wand pointed at the ground approximately four meters away from the location that he was dropping toward. He'd almost missed it in the chaos of his fall, but several more stunners were flying into the projected path of his fall which meant he needed to change his trajectory…

With a grunt of unleashed aggression, Harry slammed his feet into the side of the rock column, launching himself into a diagonal fall towards the bank of dense air he'd just created. A split second later, a pair of stunners splashed against the column exactly where he would have been, and Harry found himself plunging in a head first dive towards the floor.

When Harry fell through the target area of his spell, the air was as thick as molasses, slowing him down just enough that he could roll painfully along the ground, without any (noticeable) injury. A roll that he continued to perform even as his momentum came to an end, in order to dodge yet more stunners that were flying in his direction.

Finally, when he won himself a moment free of stunner spells, Harry sprang back up to his feet, and he smiled cheerfully in Draco's direction. Now that he was back on his feet, and for the moment at least, free of mortal peril, Harry walked back and forth, dodging Malfoy and Nott's stunners with laughable ease. He also released his magical shroud from within his body to provide himself some more extrasensory perception…

"Gravitas Maxi," the Proctors intoned with a visible mass of collected magic floating in front of their wands, creating a very slow moving and dark gray spell that looked like it weighed a ton that they released towards Harry's rock column.

"This spell is a gravity amplifier spell," Fleur empathically explained. "You should find cover behind the stone column to avoid the stunners, brace yourself, and then just wait it out. It doesn't last long."

While letting Fleur feel some of his gratitude for her ongoing help, Harry quickly circled his stone column, braced his legs, and once again pulled his magic back into his body. Fleur's plan seemed like common sense under the circumstances, and Harry was completely confident in his body.

As It turns out, both Harry and Fleur had seriously underestimated the amount of power the proctor's had channeled into their spell…

Immediately after the heavy gravity spell sank into the stone column, the whole damned base of the thing shattered under the burden of nearly five G forces of pressure. At the exact same time, Harry grunted, cursed, staggered, and then dropped to a knee under the crushing weight that was being heaped upon his body. He groaned and dropped his hands to the platform, as he struggled just to remain upright and mobile. This was so much more weight than he'd ever imagined the proctors would use, and he could feel his body taking damage under the strain. Then, suddenly, the situation started getting even worse. Darkness started encroaching his vision, tunneling his eyesight, and Harry felt himself beginning to black out. All of the G forces piled onto his body were pushing his blood towards his feet, and his brain was starving for oxygen...

Reacting on instinct, Harry forced his magic to transport both blood and oxygen throughout his entire body, and the dimness behind his eyes slowly ebbed away.

It was only in the process of shaking out his head that Harry looked up and saw what was coming… It wasn't good.

Harry's stone column had betrayed him.

While at first it had teetered back and forth, the entire massive stone column had now begun to topple down right in Harry's direction. Mustering up all of his magically enhanced strength, Harry somehow managed to dive to his right, and roll away from the falling monolith of rock. He desperately continued to roll after he painfully hit the ground, because he knew exactly what was coming next.

Booom!

The massive and heavy stone column, smashed into the platform like a meteor. A lightning crack of impact, and a series of resounding booms split the air and echoed around the entire Great Hall.

A blast of wind pressure managed to launch Harry through the air in a fast but shallow arch, but thankfully he'd narrowly avoided the explosion of rock debris that the column had become on impact. Crashing painfully back to the earth, Harry realized that he could hardly move even as he continued to desperately thrash his arms and hips to continue his roll.

Harry needed to get back up to his feet NOW or he was going to take a stunner to the back. The only reason he wasn't being pelted by the spells already was because Malfoy and Nott were chugging Pepper-up Potions

With manic looks upon their faces and smoke drifting from their mouths, Draco and Theo lined up to cast even more stunners at Potter. He was stuck on the platform like a bug under a fly swatter and completely defenseless. Now was the time.

With an audible growl of extreme effort, Harry channeled magic through his muscles, lurched up to a knee and then braced his hands on his thighs. While panting for air, Harry's eyes panned over towards the two Slytherin boys. It definitely pissed him off when he saw them both smiling at him in satisfaction, but he channeled his anger in the right direction.

Movement... He needed to move.

It was time for Harry to use his so-called supernatural strength to do more than show off. He did not want to waste even more magic on these fools. The task was only about half over, he'd already been forced to bleed huge amounts of magic, and Gods only knew what lengths he'd be forced to go to during the remaining five minutes...

The duo of overenthusiastic Slytherins went at their work with a will. Their wands whipped out, and a wild spray of stunner spells flew into the barrier.

Lurching to the right and then the left, found Harry flopping into a clumsy roll, out of the way of at least eleven rapid stunners. His body trembled all over, and sweat flew out of his hair, as he continued to move under the crushing effect of more than four Earth gravities. With muscles that were visibly straining beneath his skin, Harry pushed himself up to a knee again, and then back into a crouch upon both of his feet. With painfully clenched teeth, he forced himself to adopt a ready posture. Superficially, Harry looked as if he was all set to spring aside, but his entire body was shaking like a leaf the entire damned time. He bent right and then left, dodging two more stunners, and then he stared back at the two Slytherins, in a moment of open challenge. Harry's face was set in a scary, feral smile that made him look like little more than an animal...

"How is he doing that!" At this point, the announcer was calling out to the audience, sounding more like a kid on Christmas morning than any kind of paid professional. "Judging by the time taken to cast it and the sheer size of that heavy Gravity spell, I'd surmise that Harry's body weighs well over five hundred pounds right now! Not only that but he's also under the effects of a strong dizzying spell! Harry Potter should be struggling simply to breathe under all of that weight, not moving around! Just look at that expression he's making! Harry Potter looks as if he's enjoying himself! Oh wow, this is awesome everybody! Will he make it?!"

"Laximentum Scopuslaxe," (fast appearing, widespread sharp boulders) the proctors intoned, casting a brown swirl of jagged smoke to flow towards the barrier.

In the bond Fleur screamed "Stabbing boulders from the ground, 'Arry! You'll need to dodge like mad!" Rage started coursing into Harry from Fleur's side of the bond, as she took in what could only be a murder attempt, and was unable to help. This was the second time the A.O.E. spells that the proctors chose were deliberately stacked to be ultra-lethal to the Champion!

Despite Fleur's warning, Harry knew for a fact that he couldn't dodge using merely his physical strength. The increased gravity spell was still in effect, so he'd have no choice but to use even more of his quickly draining magic. After leaping and rolling to the side to evade a trio of stunning spells, he directed his magic down into the platform beneath his newly crouching body, began Transfiguring himself yet another stone column, and he let it raise him away from the incoming chaos. The strain to build a strong enough stone column under all of the extra gravity was enormous, but Harry didn't have any better ideas. His stores of magic were being bled off at a terrifying speed, and at the moment there was no ambient heat to siphon power off of.

When the column was about four and a half meters off the ground, the heavy gravity spell abruptly came to an end, and Harry groaned in relief as all of his joints popped in released tension. At exactly the same time, the Proctor's slow moving, stabbing boulder spell hit the platform, and a rumbling began underground.

Within the next few seconds, Harry realized just how bad an idea his newest stone column had been, and he began mentally berating himself.

Crack! Crack! Rattle, rattle, BOOOM!

An entire platform full of knife edged rocks and boulders stabbed up out of the floor all at once at a high velocity, almost instantly shattering the base of Harry's ill fated stone column... After swaying for just a single moment, the stone column started falling to the side like a chopped down tree, carrying Harry down right along with it...

As Harry started plummeting towards the platform again, he shook his head in frustration. He'd already lost track of just how many times he'd fallen, seemingly to his death, in the last what seven minutes? While he wasn't as high in the air this time, he didn't feel like being cut to ribbons landing amongst those boulders either. Fleur liked the scars he had now, so Harry didn't feel the need to add any more. With that in mind, Harry Transfigured his shoes into smooth, slippery, metal boots, so that he wouldn't be cut up while kicking and sliding off the boulders below.

The boulders were all pointing up at Harry in sharp, knifelike formations, so if he was very agile it might be Possible to slide down their sides.

While cycling Aethir in and around his body, Harry mentally prepared himself for the anarchy that he was about to take part in. The stone Column he was currently riding was about to smash into the boulders below, in an explosion of dust and debris. With that happy thought in mind, Harry made an executive decision, and preemptively leapt off of his stone column, into empty air. He didn't want anything to do with the explosion of rocks and dust that was about to happen below, so he'd decided to take his chances falling by himself.

Under Aethir's influence, the fall seemed to take forever, and Harry was able to angle his body just right for landing. Then, when his feet finally met the stone on one of the taller boulders, he ended up sliding down it's surface like a skateboarder would while grinding. His metal boots were shearing small, sharp, protrusions off of the rock's surface but he wasn't being cut.

Boooom! Yet another massive stone column crashed to the earth, smashing into the spear-tipped boulders below, in a spray of dust, debris and displaced air.

A huge roar of noise and a rush of air buffeted Harry's back, and he knew that his stone column had landed heavily into the spikes. Thankfully, he was making excellent time away from that mess by grinding down a ramp of different boulders. After sliding down one knife-like boulder, Harry leapt across a chasm to another, and then repeated the same process. Stunner spells ricocheted off of the rocks around and behind him, forcing Harry to move erratically, as he powerslid down several spiky rock faces.

Despite the chaos that he was currently experiencing, Harry took a moment to thank the Gods he had Aethir to help him be graceful. He knew very well that he'd never have been capable of these absurd stunts without her guiding his movements. Aethir just giggled in his ear, and enthused that he was the funnest partner ever!

Eventually Harry ran out of smooth surfaced boulders and it was time to jump to the ground. Aethir did her part by cushioning his landing, but he still hit the ground hard, before rolling into a run. Several dozen stunners were still flying in his direction, but because of the boulders he actually had more defensive formations now than he'd had since entering the platform. Leaning against a rock face, Harry Transfigured his shoes back to normal, and then spent the next forty seconds catching his breath.

Through a gap in the boulders, Harry caught sight of an angry and frustrated cast to all of the proctors' faces, as they intoned the words, "Gravitas Divorci," casting a white feather-like spell to float towards the barrier.

"That's an anti-gravity spell," Fleur gasped out in her surprise. "Down is up and up is down! Grab onto something!"

In response to his wife's warning, Harry muttered a series of angry curses as he looked down at the floor beneath his feet, Conjured a metal anchor three meters below the platform, and then magically lassoed himself to it just in time to find himself looking up instead of down.

Within the next split second, all of the boulders surrounding Harry's body fell upwards towards the Great Hall's ceiling, which would be a major problem later, but was the very last of his concerns right now. At the moment, Harry moved to prevent himself from being a stationary target, by wrapping his lasso around his waist multiple times, pointing his wand down towards the Slytherins below, and then pumping his legs to swing himself back and forth in a wide erratic arc.

Over the next forty seconds, a barrage of stunning spells flew up at Harry's body, during which time he swung back and forth to dodge most of the spells, and Conjured wooden boards to block those spells he couldn't avoid…

Then, finally, by some fluke of good timing, the anti-gravity spell ended just as Harry was entering a downward swing, which conveniently meant that he was heading upwards when gravity returned to normal. While on the one hand this outcome meant that he had further to fall, it also meant that he had more time to react.

In a blur of graceful movement, Harry completed a flip and a spin in the air, righting himself (with Aethir's help of course) and then he rolled when he slammed down into the earth. He rolled several more times to dodge yet another volley of stunners flying his way, Transfigured yet another short wall out of the floor that he lay behind on his back, and he pointed his wand up towards the chaos above.

Kaboom!

In just under a second, Harry cast four different Bombarda spells up towards the meteor shower of boulders that were careening down in his direction, pulverizing the boulders that would've smashed down upon his body.

But he left the rest alone, and he did so for a reason.

As the remaining boulders crashed down all around the platform, a billowing cloud of rock dust was released into the air, obscuring the platform and Harry's location.

It didn't take long at all for Draco and Theo to become frustrated with the dust cloud. They couldn't see where Potter was, so they didn't know where to cast their stunner spells. Without any idea where Harry was, they were forced to pray and spray over fifty stunners into the dust cloud, in Potter's general direction.

After creating another bubble head charm around his face, Harry released his aura shroud again so that he could feel the stunners being cast in his direction. Despite how unpleasant his current situation was, Harry made excellent use of the time that it afforded him… he caught his breath. He loosened up his sore muscles, he shook out his body. He circulated some of his remaining magic around his body, rush healing strains and sprains before they could get worse with time…

There was one other thing that Harry finally had the time to do, as he hung out deep within the dust cloud. For the first time since he first started this Task, he had the chance to really think about the magnitude of the spells that were being launched in his direction. While it was painfully obvious that Draco meant him harm, it was also becoming increasingly obvious that these proctors were trying to kill him...

Fleur immediately agreed with her husband, as she ranted about the proctors and curled her consciousness around his body. Harry spent the last couple of seconds spent within the cover of his dust cloud, calming and consoling his wife. If it was obvious to both Harry and Fleur that this was a deliberate attack, then it was most likely obvious to everyone else as well. The chances were pretty good that these proctors were going to be arrested by the end of the day…

Fleur agreed, with the addition that the proctors would likely already be arrested, except interfering with Tasks in any way shape or form is against the rules of the Tournament. The Headmasters and Tournament Officials couldn't interfere or they would face strict punishment. Likewise, the proctors needed to finish their role for the day or they'd face the consequences of a broken magical contract.

As the billowing cloud of rock-dust obscured the platform below, the guest announcer used the momentary break in the action, to ecstatically yell out some more joy-filled commentary. "Harry Potter is dueling with both those two boys and the proctors right now, and let there be no doubt about it! Oh sure, Harry isn't sending back any offensive spells, but what else can this be called?! Harry is weathering all of the spell effects being sent his way one after another and it - is - glorious! He's been targeted by hundreds of stunners at this point and has evaded every single one! Not only that, but the proctors are throwing everything that they have at him... like seriously everything! I have never seen so many lethal spells used in conjunction before, and just a few moments ago they all drank Pepper-up potions so that they can throw out even more!"

"Ignis Carcerous," (Flame Prison) the proctors yelled out in growls of absolute effort, before they all collapsed onto their knees with nauseous looks upon their faces. A gigantic red and billowing spell flew towards Harry's side of the platform, where the dust cloud from earlier was finally settling to the floor…

"Holy Gods, 'Arry! Fire, fire and lots of it! Don't bother with the flame freeze spell, this fire will be waaay too hot for that!" Fleur started ranting about how she was going to murder these irresponsible and crazy proctors, as she began losing her mind in concern for her mate... Only for Fleur's tirade to come to a sudden end when a huge smile bloomed across Harry's face, and she realized exactly why…

Harry was magically starving at the moment, and it was time to have a feast!

After the boiling red spell crashed down into the platform, a gigantic circular wave of intense fire suddenly coalesced just within the walls of the area and then flew inwards towards Harry from every direction… At which point, Harry began siphoning off every scrap of power available from the ambient heat that the spell was giving off, refilling his core power as quickly as possible.

As Harry's magical core refilled itself at a remarkable rate, the flames that were flying at him seemed to disintegrate in the air, stripped of the energy that allowed them to exist in the first place.

And Fleur was so impressed, so relieved, she didn't react with words. She merely curled her consciousness around his body in the bond, and pressed her face down into his neck…

Eventually, Harry's core started becoming saturated with excess energy so he sent some along to Fleur and swelled her core. Shortly after that, she was far too charged with magic to absorb much more, and yet the flame prison spell was nowhere near done torching the platform all around him. That's when Harry decided to send out that new spell that he'd been just dying to use.

With a wide and happy smile upon his face, Harry screamed out the words "Aguamantia Maxis," as he channeled a gigantic amount of his magic into the massively powerful spell.

"You're a hammer 'Arry," Fleur whispered directly into his ear.

Harry merely grinned in reply, as a twenty meter long, four meter wide water dragon exploded out of his wand, before it began flying tight circles around his body, creating a gigantic barrier between him and the flames. The absolutely enormous serpent flew tight, fast-paced circles around Harry's body, spitting thick clouds of steam and superheated air outwards towards the barrier wall… Inside the inner coils of the circling water dragon, Harry had a bubble head charm in place again, and although he was a little bit scalded at this point, he was still smiling that same feral smile.

Seemingly out of nowhere, a huge gong sound went off in the distance, and the conflagration of fire beating against Harry's water spell immediately started dissipating. Harry instantly let the water serpent collapse in on itself, and it rained down upon the platform, where it boiled into steam atop the super-heated stone.

"What in the Goddesses name did Potter just do?!" The announcer was screaming now, and he seemed oblivious to the still silent crowd. "One second all we saw was a wall of flame and what was most likely Harry Potter's untimely death, and in the next moment there was an explosion of fiery steam filling up the whole entire barrier! There is no way Harry could've Conjured enough water to fight off that inferno, but that's exactly what the steam is implying he tried! Is Lord Potter alright? Are we going to find a flash-fried body in there in just a few moment's time? How did this Task get so out of control?! That was a Fire Prison spell just now, and it's one of the deadliest area of effect spells ever developed by wizardkind. The Fire Prison spell is used in total war and nowhere else, because it's a tool of mass slaughter! I think the Triwizard committee is going to have a lot of explaining to do for its use in this tournament at all! That's especially true if it was used to kill the Lord of a Noble and Most Ancient House!"

At the description of young Harry Potter as an honest to Gods, fully emancipated, Noble and Most Ancient Lord, the Bulgarian proctors suddenly broke out in a cold sweat, and looked at each other with bald-faced fear in their eyes.

With Aethir keeping the cloud of steam from scalding Harry's body, he waited patiently for it to billow away (showmanship), during which time, he performed a quick drying spell on himself, and tried to rush heal all of the visible bruising he'd accrued. There wasn't much of a chance that he'd fool Poppy, but it was worth a try either way.

As the cloud of steam and mist dissipated, Harry was still just standing there in his small circle of clean, smooth rock. This was made even more dramatic by the fact that he was completely surrounded on all sides by pulverized, scorched, soot covered, flaming in some places, vines and rubble, on all sides. Idly, Harry brushed some soot and dust off of his sleeves, and visually checked himself out for damages. After finishing his self-diagnosis, he confirmed that he was just a little singed, and bruised under his skin where it wouldn't be visible. To his surprise, Harry was left lamenting his destroyed t-shirt more than anything. At this point, his shirt was covered in tears, holes and scorch marks, rendering it little better than a rag. Harry Potter shook his head, as he decided that he and clothing just didn't go well together. He was interrupted from mourning his cool t-shirt, by his wife.

"The lightning bolts… They're going to be back…"

Harry could hear the certainty and fatalism within his wife's empathically conveyed words, and while he wanted to disagree, he didn't want to lie… Instead, Harry finally looked up at the audience and… Oh. Oh yeah... There they were... A couple thousand people just staring at him as if he was a zoo animal...

Which made sense.

When the billowing cloud of steam left behind by the wall of white-hot fire slowly drifted away, Harry James Potter was revealed just standing in the middle of the platform, checking out the many holes in his uniform with a dissatisfied expression upon his face.

Belatedly, Harry exited the smooth polished stone that he was standing on, moving as gracefully as he could under the circumstances. He had to be careful of his footing as he moved, because the entire platform looked like the center of a volcano eruption or a meteorite impact of some kind. There were pitfalls, jagged peaks of melted rock, and dozens of small fires ejecting acrid smoke into the air like a landscape in hell. The whole scene was eerily quiet, to the point that Harry wondered if he'd blown his eardrums at some point during the task…

As Harry arrived at the Judges table, it was Fred and George who finally stood up and started it. All of the sudden, the unnatural quiet filling the entire Great Hall was interrupted by the two of them screaming those same two words towards the ceiling, in a moment of triumph, mixed with honest to Gods joy.

"HARRY POTTER!"

Almost immediately after the twins began their screaming, the rest of the crowd...

EXPLODED!

Twenty-seven hundred plus wizards and witches, minus the two or three hundred haters, flung themselves to their feet, where they began losing their minds in their rising excitement. The windows of the Great Hall rattled and the stands shook with it. The guest announcer gave up trying to regain control of the audience, and simply joined them instead, hooting and hollering in his runaway excitement. Nobody could even believe the level of resourcefulness, power and sheer determination that Harry Potter had just displayed over a matter of only ten minutes. His deeds would be talked about for decades, until what is merely improbable becomes impossible, and the story becomes a big fish tale. People would then debate it over and over again until someone from France finally donates a Pensieve memory to the school. It would from then on sit in the Hogwarts trophy case for hundreds of years.

One thing was for certain. No one present in those stands would ever forget the day that Harry Potter was asked to counter area of effect spells…

Out in the stands, Fred and George hastily collected the four hundred plus galleons that they'd just won, by betting that Harry would somehow survive the entire ten minutes… They'd specifically bet that Harry would have no damned clue how to counter the spells, but that he'd make it through the entire task anyway.

Down at the judges table, after getting himself checked out by Poppy, Harry Potter abruptly Disillusioned himself, as he moved to spend the remainder of the event with the Delacour family.

His wife, his Fleur, was about to put on a show…

To Be Continued

Author's Note:

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