23| THE UNEXPECTED COMPLIMENT
The twenty-fourth of November 1994 had the same level of zest as Halloween or Christmas. Only this zest wasn't easily patent. It was hidden in the whispers of students, the echoes in the castle walls, the jittery nerves of the Triwizard champions. Breakfast was a silent issue for not only those who were about to face their first task but also those who would attend the event. Lessons were to stop at midday, giving all the students time to get down to the dragons' enclosure — though of course, they didn't yet know what they would find there.
For those who did, it was dreadful to even think of how the upcoming event would progress, let alone calculate the probability of becoming toast that afternoon.
The only one burdened with this knowledge, and yet unbothered was Gemini. All she could imagine since the moment of her discovery was the intimate structure of the dragons' tough hides, their comparatively small, delicate eyes, and the way fire blossomed from their mouths like a fiery red flower. Each had its own uniqueness, each was equally commendable. It was formidable to even think that in a few hours' time, she would be present before the dragons again.
The day seemed to stretch on endlessly. Why were the clocks ticking so leisurely? Couldn't the sun pass quicker overhead? When did Charms become so agonising?
The four champions were experiencing an entirely different story. For them, time was behaving in a more peculiar fashion than ever, rushing past in great dollops, hurrying from number to number as if it were being chased by wolves. And before they could properly register anything they had done before lunch, they were being hastened down to the grounds. Where had the morning gone? The last of the dragon-free hours?
Post lunch, the rest of the students were led to the dragons' enclosure which was now surrounded by stands that had been magicked there. Everyone filed into the stands eagerly, the chaos almost unmanageable for the teachers. The atmosphere was electric, mysterious. The anticipation was nearly killing the spectators. Following a few moments of undulating stillness, a whistle blew somewhere. The next second Ludo Bagman came jogging up to the tower from where he was to perform his commentary. Then he pointed his wand at his throat and started:
"WELCOME! Welcome to ladies and gentlemen, guests, hosts, and ghosts alike! I cordially invite you to the very first task of the Triwizard Tournament!"
Somewhere amongst the sea of green and silver ties was Gemini, leaning over the fence with a casual elegance as everyone around her went wild. Unlike the Quidditch tournament, she knew who she would be cheering this time — the dragons. Lips curled lightly at the edge and eyes holding a very satisfied expression, she tried not to act like she knew exactly what was coming.
"The first challenge we pose for the champions is to collect a golden egg, for which they must each get past a great, lethal obstacle. So without further adieu, let me present to you — dragons!"
There was a deafening clamour; Gemini's lips split into a grin. The first of the four dragons appeared before them: the Swedish Short-Snout. The silver-blue dragon was low on its belly, like a predator preparing for a sly attack on its prey. Looking closer, she discovered it was guarding a clutch of eggs, one of which was golden. The dragon nuzzled her eggs protectively at once, including the golden one.
Gemini looked askance at the ploy.
The challenge was cruel, not for the champions, but for the dragons. The nesting mothers would be tricked into believing that the golden egg was theirs, like the rest of their real ones. They would fight tooth and nail to defend their eggs and though they themselves were too strong to get hurt in the process, the smallest of accidents could damage the real eggs. That was too high a price for mere entertainment.
The crowd gave another roar as Cedric Diggory entered now, his wand out. He looked very green as he caught sight of the ferocious Short-Snout, which blew a stream of blue flame toward him. The crowned screamed as the fire nearly singed him. The dragon snorted and snarled as he came closer. It shot another torrent of fire and the crowd yelled again.
"Oooh, narrow miss there, very narrow..." Bagman's commentary continued on in the background. "He's taking risks, this one!"
What Diggory did next was a rather admirable bit of Transfiguration. Pointing his wand at a rock on the ground, he turned it into a dog. This successfully diverted the dragon's attention. The dog barked fiercely and backed away from the dragon while Diggory crept toward the egg.
"Clever move —" started Bagman.
Much to Diggory's disadvantage, the dragon seemed to change its mind halfway through and decided it would rather have him than the Labrador. It roared furiously as it found that he had the golden egg in his arms and shot a powerful, scorching flame right at him. The crowd gasped like a single many-headed entity.
"— pity it didn't work!" ended Bagman's comment.
After fifteen minutes of the Hufflepuff ducking behind boulders, dodging fire, running, sneaking, and shooting spells, he finally got away to a safer distance, sending the students into a frenzy. He did get a terrible burn on his face in the process however and was led, presumably, to the nearest healing facility.
"Very good indeed!" Bagman was shouting. "And now the marks from the judges!"
The judges all shot up numbers from their wands and the total score was fairly average. Everyone broke into applause, the Hufflepuffs were particularly loud.
"One down, three to go!" Bagman yelled as the whistle blew again. "Miss Delacour, if you please!"
Trembling from head to toe, Fleur Delacour's fluttering blue robes caught Gemini's attention. Despite the obvious fear, she had her head held high as one of her shaky hands tightly clutched her wand. Before her was the Welsh Green, which snapped its jaws at her and wrenched against the chains with all its strength.
From what Gemini had observed about them, Beauxbatons wasn't quite famous for dealing with creatures as erratic and dangerous as the ones they learned about (though a majority of that credit went to Hagrid's wild ventures rather than the entire school). They seemed to value art and literature invariably above all else and studied them more intricately, which, while fascinating, appeared a little lacking to her. The school's reputation preceded it only due to crafty wizards like Nicholas Flamel and Vincent Duc de Trefle-Picques.
Grey eyes growing sharper and more curious by the minute, she looked at Fleur, to find some of that craftiness in her, and was not disappointed to find her performing an odd sort of charm that was making the Welsh Green weaker by the minute. It didn't take her long to realise that she was trying to send the dragon into an enchanted sleep. Unfortunately, the dragon didn't seem to like this at all.
"Oh, I'm not sure that was wise!" Bagman was shouting gleefully as Fleur tried to concentrate on her charm while shielding herself from the dragon's attacks. "Oh... nearly! Careful now... good lord, I thought she'd had it then!"
Gemini clucked her disapproval. "Who put him there?"
"Can't disagree."
Gemini glanced beside her to find that Theodore had joined her on the railing. "Nott," she acknowledged him shortly.
"Delmar," he returned with a slight tilt of his head, but he did not look her way.
Gemini focused her eyes again on the main event. Fleur had at last successfully completed the charm. She was just moving in the direction of the eggs when the dragon gave a snore and a great jet of flame shot out of its nostrils which caused her skirt to catch fire. She gave a shriek and put it out with a bit of water out of her wand. After a total of ten seemingly very short minutes, she managed to retrieve her golden egg and the crowd erupted into applause once more. Fleur's marks were shown... more clapping... then, for the third time, the whistle.
"And here comes Mr. Krum!" cried Bagman, and Krum slouched in with his brooding face on.
His competition was a Chinese Fireball, which, like its namesake, looked like a fiery ball of red fire with an odd fringe of fine gold spikes around its face. Upon seeing Krum, it shot great, mushroom-shaped fire clouds into the air to warn him off.
Gemini was more invested this time. When Diggory and Fleur had tried to get past the dragons, she hadn't been much concerned about the safety of the eggs or the dragons. They didn't seem like much of a threat to the dragons, but Krum came from a school where dark magic was practically religion. Durmstrang was infamous for the dark wizards it produced, Grindelwald being one of these. And though she knew that she couldn't condemn all the Durmstrang students on account of a couple of rotten fruits, she knew that Karkaroff would do anything to have his champion win. Especially after she had discovered him sneaking into the Forbidden Forest to find out what the first task was.
Yes, Gemini had seen him that night — in fact, she had nearly bumped into him — which she was certain would not have been a pleasant meeting. She was so very thankful for that mysterious distraction that had saved her while she had been merrily going back to the castle, grinning like a madwoman. Apart from the gratitude, however, she was also insanely inquisitive to find out who else had been there that night. Upon hearing that sound while talking to Charlie, she'd ignored it only because no one else had heard it. But later when she saw Karkaroff having a similar misconception, she realised that she couldn't have been dreaming it all up after all...
Gemini snapped herself back to reality only to see Krum hit the dragon with a spell, aimed right at its weakest spot — the eye. She gasped in horror as the Chinese Fireball emitted a horrible, roaring shriek and the crowd drew its collective breath.
"Very daring!" Bagman was yelling.
"Daring?" she exclaimed outrageously, a sneer finding its way to her lips. "How dare he!"
As if harming the dragon wasn't enough, the poor thing then went trampling around in agony and squashed half the real eggs. But of course, to add to that was Bagman's rude commentary ("That's some nerve he's showing!").
This was crossing the line for Gemini.
"THAT VILE, ABOMINABLE, HEINOUS SON OF A —"
It took two pairs of arms to hold her back from jinxing Krum right there and then. Her knuckles, tightly wrapped around the railing, had turned white with sheer fury. Everyone around her was staring at her in utter shock — they had never seen her lose control like this before.
"And — yes, he's got the egg!" Bagman announced gleefully.
All of Gemini's unholy words were drowned out by applause that shattered the wintery air like breaking glass.
"Gemini, calm down!" Blaise was speaking in her ear, restraining one of her arms.
Theodore, who was grabbing her other arm, asked an amused Draco to stop enjoying the show and help instead. He did not, obviously. But by far, the one person who was delighting in the event the most was Pansy. She whispered snide remarks in Tracey and Daphne's ears with a terrible smirk and did not look sorry about the eggs at all. Hers and Draco's gang were eagerly supporting Krum.
Blaise shot them a small glare as he once again asked Gemini to stay still. "Hurting him is not going to undo the damage," he said surprisingly calmly, "stop struggling and think of something more logical to do! And look they're giving him marks now —"
This ended her fit almost immediately, albeit her eyes were still glinting with a malevolent look. The judges took marks off Krum for the damage, which did help her calm herself a little, but Karkaroff (she called him something awfully dirty) awarded him a full ten. "You're right," she admitted to Blaise nonetheless — he and Theodore heaved great sighs — "I do suppose disfiguring his already ugly face won't be of any use..."
"So what's next on your mind? Murder?" Draco intervened joyfully.
"Appealing, but counterproductive," she answered, except, Draco was no longer paying her heed.
This was chiefly because the fourth and the last champion had entered. This champion was the one he had been awaiting for ages. So were the Gryffindors, but for sorely different reasons. For this champion was none other than The Boy Who Lived: sworn enemy of Draco and a majority of the Slytherins.
Harry Potter looked positively terrified as he stared up at the hundreds and hundreds of faces in the stands and then at the dragon he was to confront. By far the strongest of the four, the dragon before his eyes was the vicious Horntail, crouching low over her clutch of eggs, her wings half-furled, her keen, yellow eyes upon him as she thrashed her spiked tail, leaving yard-long gouge marks in the hard ground.
A dangerously quiet Gemini was now leaning over the railing, studying the dragon and the champion's stances. Theodore had let go of her now; Blaise's proximity remained. It seemed to take just one look from him for every person who had been watching them to hastily turn away. There was a great deal of noise all around. Most of the students booed and hissed at the champion — the Hufflepuffs more than anyone surprisingly. Gryffindors constituted the few people who were supporting him.
He raised his wand.
"What's he up to?" muttered Gemini suspiciously.
"Accio Firebolt!" he shouted.
Draco snarled enviously. This made Gemini's lips curl into a smile.
For a moment, there was nothing. Then came a peculiar sound, as if something was whooshing through the air at a cosmic speed... and then hurtling from around the edge of the woods came a broomstick, polished and new; it soared into the enclosure and stopped dead in midair beside its owner, waiting for him to mount. The people's interest was at once renewed and those who were against Potter were also starting to change their minds. Bagman went wild as Harry swung his leg over the broom and kicked off from the ground. He soared higher and higher and finally paused in the air for a second.
And then he dived.
The Horntail's head followed him, waiting to attack.
Gemini couldn't understand what he was playing at. At any rate, she was sure he was going to crash and die if he kept speeding down like that. He reminded her oddly of a shooting star. And then — just as she thought her prediction was going to come true, he pulled out of the dive and the dragon released a jet of fire exactly where he would have been had he not swerved away.
It was so easily done, and so quickly that she barely registered it.
"Great Scott, he can fly!" yelled Bagman as the crowd shrieked and gasped. Gemini agreed with him for once. "Are you watching this, Mr. Krum?"
"No wonder you guys don't win against Gryffindor at Quidditch," she said to Blaise and the rest with a half-amazed expression. Draco let out a low growl and even Blaise looked bitter at her comment, if not jealous.
Potter soared higher in a circle; the Horntail was still following his progress; its head revolving on its long neck... he plummeted just as the Horntail opened its mouth, but this time he was less lucky — he missed the flames, but the tail came whipping up to meet him instead, and as he swerved to the left, one of the long spikes grazed his shoulder, ripping his robes.
Screams and groans were heard from people. Gemini's impression of him dampened a little.
Potter seemed to realise whatever he was doing was not working and changed his pattern of flying. He flew one way first, then the other, not near enough to make the Horntail breathe fire to stave him off, but still posing a sufficient threat to ensure she kept her eyes on him. Her head swayed this way and that, watching him out of those vertical pupils, her fangs bared...
'Hypnosis' was the first word that flashed in Gemini's head. The Horntail obviously didn't want to move away from her eggs so he was trying to slowly persuade it by tempting it and making it dizzy enough to move away.
"He would've done well in Slytherin...." she wondered, "Merlin knows we need a better Seeker!" She purposefully said the Seeker part louder for Draco to hear.
Blaise exhaled loudly, massaging his forehead.
Potter flew higher. The Horntail's head rose with him, her neck now stretched to its fullest extent, still swaying, like a snake before its charmer.... he rose a few more feet, and she let out a roar of exasperation. He was like a fly to her, a fly she was longing to swat; her tail thrashed again, but he was too high to reach now... She shot fire into the air, which he dodged... Her jaws opened wide...
He was swerving tantalizingly above her and there was such thick tension in the stands — it was as if everyone had stopped breathing all at once.
And then she reared, spreading her great, black, leathery wings at last, as wide as those of a small airplane — and Harry dived. There was another collective gasp; Bagman was finding it hard to keep up with the rapid events. Before the dragon knew what he had done, or where he had disappeared to, he was speeding toward the ground as fast as he could go, toward the eggs now unprotected by her clawed front legs.... he took his hands off his Firebolt and he seized the golden egg and flew above and as far away from the dragon as he could.
But Gemini had no time to appreciate any of that. She herself was hypnotized by the breathtaking magnificence of the Horntail. She was facing up toward it in awe as it stood on its hind legs and let loose a powerful jet of flame... there was a deafening roar... how very stunning it was...
Gemini felt like a child.
A beautiful smile indented the corner of her parted mouth, so much truer than the ones she had worn in a very long while. Blaise was the only one with good enough fortune to see it, see the positive glitter in her eyes before it all disappeared. The dragon was being pulled away now, which she obviously didn't like. Why did they have to take it away?
"Gemini?" Blaise whispered softly in her ear. She jumped — very unlike her, he noticed. "Time to go...."
"What? What about Potter's marks —"
"That happened while you were busy falling in love with the Horntail," he teased her.
She rolled her eyes as if she hadn't been daydreaming only seconds ago and started proceeding out with the other Slytherins. Draco was noisily babbling about how great Krum was, which sent Gemini right back into a mood.
"Did you see the way his spell was right on target?" he was saying as they came out in the open. "It was brilliant! Pity they deduced marks for the stupid eggs —"
One look at Gemini's face told everyone that he had spoken the wrong words.
"Krum deserved worse; it's only because Karkaroff is a predisposed bastard that he got good marks." she interrupted him, putting her point out very clearly, unaffected by the several eyes upon her.
Draco gave a snarky laugh as he mocked her, "Who do you think was the best, Gemini? Pretty boy Potter?"
"As a matter of fact, yes." she stated, knowing well he would hate the words from her mouth. She continued in a louder and clearer voice, "I'll have you know that I think Potter was far better than Krum."
What she did not know, however, was that Harry himself had heard every single word she had uttered. He had just exited the champions' tent after a short meeting with Bagman when her words floated into his ears.
He thought he would simply combust with happiness. It was a strange happiness though; it was filling him up inside but the shock was too great to allow this happiness — this euphoria — to be expressed. He could feel Ron stiffly standing next to him, unsure of what to say. When he finally found control of his body, he looked at Malfoy, who was fuming as he watched Gemini turn around and leave.
Harry felt oddly satisfied. He ruffled his already untidy hair and broke into a wide grin.
Yeah, he could fly.