19 The Three Challengers

'Thoughts'

"Normal talk"

"Parseltongue"

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Cedric took a deep breath, trying to calm his nerves.

'I got this. I got the best pick of the bunch and I've done tons of research on the Chinese Fireball. There's nothing to worry about, I'll just go in and follow the plan,' he thought.

The plan that Cedric was thinking about had been in preparation since his father, a member of the Department of Magical Creature Regulation, had informed him about the task.

It was also designed with the help of his house's year-mates, both boys and girls.

He confidently walked inside the arena with his head held high, exactly as his father had taught him, albeit it didn't take long for his posture to crumble…

'Merlin's saggy tits!'

The monster in front of him was scarlet in colour and smooth-scaled, with a fringe of golden spikes around its snub-snouted face and extremely protuberant eyes. The fact that it also sized fifteen metres long, only added to its fearsomeness.

"Accio my nimbus two-thousand," cast the Hufflepuff and immediately there was a whistling sound.

He had left his broom with his father who was on the spectator stands as he wasn't sure he'd manage to summon his broom from the castle and it also saved him some precious time while it flew to him.

Thankfully, the dragon didn't notice the pesky human in its territory until after Cedric had mounted his broom.

He quickly flew tens of metres in the air and started raining down spells on the dragon.

The only reason that his strategy could ever hope to work was the dragon's inability to fly.

The dragon handlers had set-up wards to protect the spectators and also thought it would be best to put a leash on the dragon to stop it from flying away.

Unluckily for Cedric, even though he spent the next quarter of the hour casting spells at the dragon, he had only managed to cause him a single serious gash.

Even though the lad's magic had long since surpassed the average wizard, he was flying very far away from the dragon, lowering his spells' potency by the time they reached it.

The fact that he also only knew how to cast 'light spells' taught at school didn't help either.

He was also caught by a mushroom-shaped fire cloud that the dragon had breathed after one of his cutting curse variations had hit it. It wasn't anything serious and Madam Pomfrey would be able to patch it up in a jiffy, but it would lose him some valuable points.

Eventually, the dragon handlers moved in and started subjugating the dragon, allowing Cedric to fly down.

"I got thirty-five points, fuck me and my light family," he cursed after the judges announced their grades.

The last thing he heard were the cheers and Bagman imploring the audience to clap harder.

Cedric passed by the champions' tent as he headed towards the hastily set up infirmary.

HARRY

"Alright Ced?"

"Yeah, good luck Harry," he said moodily, almost wincing at a sudden jolt from his burned leg.

"Thanks," the green-eyed young man said before turning back to the silver-haired beauty in front of him.

"Why did you say you won't leave me alone again? Don't you need to prepare or something," he inquired.

"Do you want me to leave? Am I not good enough company for you?" she asked with mock hurt.

"No, I just want some peace before my turn comes up. You do remember that I have to fight the most dangerous dragon here, right?" he said slowly as if talking to a child who had problems understanding words.

"Is ze Abyssal Reaver too much ze little 'arry Potter? Do you perhaps want to change dragons wiz me?" she teased.

Harry shook his head, choosing to ignore her, and turned his attention to back to his previous conversation.

'Are you sure that the beetle is a human?' he inquired.

'Absolutely and you would know that too had you finally decided to use your magical-'

'Yes, I know. Can we not do this right now? I'm still trying to get the hang of it…' Harry cut off the snake and received a mental, annoyed nod.

'Fine. Should I attack?' he asked impatiently.

'Wait for Fleur to leave so it's just us,' he replied with a tone of finality.

Speaking of the French girl, she started waving her wands in front of him.

"'arry, 'arry. Stop ignoring me…" she huffed.

"What do you want?"

"For someone who was stalking me, you sure don't give me much attention now."

Harry, barely managed to catch Krum's advancing back as he turned his attention to the girl.

"Do I have to explain to you again that I wasn't stalking you?"

KRUM

The Bulgarian champion stared at the Hungarian Horntail in front of him as it looked back.

"For Durmstrang," he whispered, moving closer to the beast.

He didn't waste any time before starting his spell barrage.

Using the dark curses taught at his school to their fullest, he managed to get some good hits on the dragon.

Eventually, an opportunity arose and he tried using a Conjunctivitus curse as a blind dragon was less dangerous than a normal one.

The curse had hit true to its target, however not only did it not have the desired effect, it also managed to enrage the dragon.

The Horntail forgot all about the dragon fire that it kept spewing and it moved closer to Krum.

'Thank god there aren't any anti-apparition wards,' he mused as he focused on the other end of the arena.

With a loud crack, Krum had instantly disappeared from his spot and materialised at the place he was looking at.

'I almost splinched,' he realised as he restarted his spell fire.

Krum had to pull the same tactic one more before the time ended, cutting a bit of his arm off.

"Huff, huff. Is it finally over?" he asked one of the dragon handlers who got inside the arena, trying hard to not collapse on the ground.

He had to keep appearances after all.

"Yes, good work lad. You should have gotten more than forty points for that but who can question what goes in Dumbledore's head," replied the man while looking at the deep gashes the Bulgarian had caused the dragon.

FLEUR

"Why did you disappear after the champion selection?" she asked Harry, making his eyebrows scrunch.

"I needed to train," he simply answered.

"What about ze wand weighing ceremony? You could have at least come to zat."

"I've got no clue what are you talking about," he said bewildered.

"'as no one told you about it? What about the Yule ball? Will you at least come to zat?"

"I still don't know what are you on about," Harry said, irritating the French girl.

'Does he know anything at all?' she thought annoyed.

"Will you stop 'iding after the task?" she asked.

"No."

"Why?" Fleur asked exasperated.

"Headmaster problems," he said, prompting Fleur's eyes to widen.

"You too?" she mumbled, her cheery demeanour crumbling.

"What do you mean?" Harry asked quickly, noticing the slip in her expression before she brought back a smile; the girl finally got more than his hormones' interest.

Sadly, she didn't get to answer as a ministry representative came in to inform them of Fleur's turn.

"I'm going in, 'ave you got anyzing you want to tell me?" she asked the raven-haired boy.

"Good luck, you'll need it," he said, letting a smile slip out.

'He's annoying,' she decided while heading towards the arena.

Soon, all thoughts of her thoughts about the boy vanished as the dragon she had to fight came into view.

'I'd love to meet the idiot who decided to put a Ukrainian Ironbelly in the tournament,' she mused.

It was metallic grey in colour, with an immense wingspan, long talons and rough scales said to be as hard as steel.

"Même l'acier fond," she mumbled as she closed her eyes and began her transformation.

Her face elongated into a sharp, cruel-beaked bird head, and long scaly wings burst from her shoulders.

She knew that her Veela heritage wouldn't be accepted with much enthusiasm from the spectators, but she didn't care. She had long since accepted that part of herself and stopped caring about peoples' prejudices.

Silently, she closed the distance between her and the ashen beast, redirecting all the fire breaths that it released, and reaching her attacking range.

She started by throwing a wandlessly cast fireball at its face.

ROAR.

'It's angry,' she observed with some amusement, conjuring and banishing more fireballs at it.

Although Veela fire lacked the heat of dragon fire, there were some exceptional cases where it could rival it.

Fleur made a finger gun with her free hand, eliciting both laughs and confused exclamations from the stands, and then mimicked a shooting gesture.

Needless to say, everyone was shocked when fire bolts shot from her hand, even though they were barely able to catch them as they were too fast-moving for human eyes.

"They don't penetrate it," she mumbled after shooting a dozen of those bolts.

'I need to get closer to it.'

As if to surprise the spectators again, Fleur lowered her wand and started singing.

It was a French lullaby!

Many tried to voice out their objections at the laughable yet beautiful display, but they were taken to Morpheus' clutches before that.

As most of the audience drifted off to sleep, Fleur put a stop to her performance and with a sudden burst of her wings blinked to the now sleeping dragon's striking range.

She immediately fired a hurling stream of dark red flames at it, waking it up.

The dragon roared again, this time in pain.

"Will you take me seriously now?" she asked, not waiting to see if the Ironbelly reacted to her words before creating and hurling a giant fireball at it.

The dragon once again roared in anger and suffering. Nonetheless, he moved to squash the little human with its humongous body.

"Ignis colona," she chanted, doing a zig-zag motion with her wand.

Two raging flame pillars erected themselves from the ground between Fleur and the dragon.

The Ironbelly, sensing the heat coming from the fire, chose to forgo his earlier plan and simply breathe his flames at the woman.

Fire met fire and for a while, it seemed that there was a stalemate…

"Merde," escaped from Fleur's lips as she soon noticed, she would lose the exchange.

Dropping her fire stream and casting a protego variation that was made in an attempt to shield from fiendfyre, she moved away.

However, the dragon simply kept breathing her way.

"Je t'emmerde," she mumbled, feeling the exhaustion of keeping up her shield.

She couldn't use the redirecting trick she did before from that distance…

"Flamma Swathe," she chanted and waved her hand, conjuring a flame at the beast's location while still keeping up the shield.

The sudden load made her stagger.

The fire concentrated and focused on the location for a moment before letting out a deafening explosion.

ROARRRRR.

The Ukrainian Ironbelly roared in agony.

That last spell had really hurt it.

It flapped its wings, clearing the smoke that the witch's flame caused and throwing the girl to the ground!

Grabbing the opportunity as a spider its prey, the dragon forego any form of caution and moved in for the kill.

The spectators watched in horror as the beast dived and bit the French champion.

'She doesn't taste very good,' it thought while munching the puny woman, rivers of blood coming off its mouth.

The last thing it remembered was the oh-so-delighting screams coming from the stands and feeling hot, really hot.

There was also that feminine voice next to his ear.

"FLAMMA SACRA," Fleur screamed while touching the dragon's neck, igniting the insides of the beast and making it slump on the ground.

'Thank god, I learned that decoy spell,' she thought while slowly getting off the dragon.

"Nique ta mère," she said to the unconscious dragon.

'I'm not sure if I should be glad that my spell wasn't powerful enough to kill it or not,' she mused while cancelling her transformation.

"WHAT A MAGNIFICENT DISPLAY OF MAGIC!! THE FRENCH CHAMPION MANAGED TO KNOCK OUT THE DRAGON!!"

While Bagman was shouting everyone's ears off at the arena, Ash had moved in on his prey.

"Greetingssss little prey," he hissed at the beetle.

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"Même l'acier fond", I got this from google translate… It's supposed to mean "Even steel melts".

"Je t'emmerde", apparently means screw you in French.

"Nique ta mère", the phrase invites a person to have sexual relations with their mother. That's the exact description I found.

[https://www.patreon.com/Mr_0ne] -> 3 chaps ahead, just finished Harry's fight :)

[https://discord.com/invite/NJ3WV9RVgR]