Chapter 159: Blinding and Rope

"An excellent performance by the Fleur Delacour," said Quinn, "the skillful use of bewitchment sleeping charm on an unsuspecting dragon was a smart decision."

Quinn turned to face Dumbledore and posed him a question, "Headmaster Dumbledore, as someone who is credited to researched and found twelve uses of dragon blood, you must be knowledgeable about dragon physiology. So my question to you is — how much of Ms. Delacour's undetection by the dragon can be attributed to the Common Welsh Green's magic detection capability and how much to her personal casting skills?"

Albus Dumbledore was ready to answer a question as part of the judging panel — a generic question, but he didn't expect Quinn to go deep and connect his work to a champion's performance.

"An interesting question — no, a splendid question," started Dumbledore with a smile, "the answer to your question is that Ms. Delacour's undetected performance depended on both her skill and the Common Welsh Green's weak senses.. . As you spoke earlier, dragons have a magic-resistant hide, and so does this breed, but the Common Welsh's hide has a peculiarity that makes its senses dull. Ms. Delacour was cautious about her output and only applied enough of the spell that she went undetected by the Common Welsh Green. According to my estimate, if Ms. Delacour had gone around ten to twenty percent over her output, she would've alerted the dragon that there was something wrong with her body."

"I see," the audience heard Quinn's voice loud and clear, "thank you for that insightful answer. You heard it, audience members, next time you come face-to-face with a Common Welsh Green — it might seem impossible to hold back in the face of a dragon, but do remember to be light-handed on magic."

Barty Crouch Sr. leaned near Bagman and whispered: "Never thought I would say this to you, Bagman, but good job on passing the hosting duties to a student. He's doing a better job than I imagined you would've done."

Bagman could do nothing but nod stiffly. It was all part of the offer he had been given in return for his debt being paid off by Quinn West. He was told by Quinn not to answer any question regarding why he had given Quinn the job.

In Quinn's words: "Sometimes, silence is better than poorly constructed lies. People fill in the unspoken with their own imagination and don't bother asking questions."

And Bagman was going to follow that to a T — Bagman had done his research and knew what kind of trouble he could get into if he didn't hold up the end of the deal he made with the West child.

.. .

"It's time for us to introduce you to the third dragon of the day," announced Quinn, "this dragon will be defending against the Bulgarian Quidditch star Victor Krum from Durmstrang."

Quinn had visited the dragon handlers and had sorted out his calling cues. They knew when to let in the dragons so that their entrance would match Quinn's hosting.

As planned, the dragon gate opened and came barreling from inside a scarlet and smooth scaled with a fringe of golden spikes around its snub-snouted face and extremely protuberant eyes. The last two dragons were worried, but they remained cautious and restrained about their surroundings — The Chinese Fireball, though? She was as aggressive as a shaken-up can of soda.

The dragon ran around the arena until she spotted her eggs resting inside a nest in the middle of the arena, and the smaller dragon spread her wings and screeched a shrill scream before closing the distance in an instant, seating herself over the egg. She breathed a deep red large mushroom-shaped flame up in the air as a warning sign, threatening anyone who dared to approach her or her children.

"The Chinese Fireball, also known as the Liondragon, is a dragon native to China. It was a brilliant red and gold dragon, named for the rounded balls of flame that shot from its nostrils," Quinn's voice gave the audience some detail about the beast they saw, "The Fireball is aggressive but, unlike other dragons, it was more tolerant of its own kind. It will sometimes consent to share its territory with up to two other dragons. They were also said to be very fast and clever, at least for a dragon."

The whistle flew to Quinn's lips, and the entry cue for the champion was sounded.

Within half a minute, Victor Krum walked into the rocky arena. The champion who had been grumpy and grouchy ever since his arrival to Hogwarts was now seen alert and ready. His face had a thin sheen of sweat, but it didn't look like anxious sweating.

"It seems Krum has been warming up to face his opponent," noted Quinn, "Is he treating the task as one of his quidditch games; if so, then that's an excellent way to calm his nerves. Let's see how much this helps him."

.. .

It turned out that Quinn was correct, as Krum had gotten so stressed when he heard Cedric had been burned by the dragon that he decided to treat this as one of his games and did a quick warmup to calm down.

He stared at the hyperactive dragon. She was turning her head all around the stands to look at all the hundreds of people.

His heart skipped a beat when the Fireball locked eyes with him. The dragon fumed two mushroom-shaped flame clouds from her nostrils, and in return, he clutched his wand tighter in his hand. The human and dragon stared at each other, neither blinking nor moving an inch with only the Fireball swishing its tail back and forth.

Maybe it was minutes or mere seconds, but the one to break the staredown was Krum, who whipped his wand above his hand and pushed the gas pedal on his magic. A red zap of spell lighting coursed from his wands towards the dragon. The mother Fireball dragon snorted two mushroom-shaped clouds from her nostrils before opening her jaw wide and shooting out red flames to counter the spell.

The spell and magical flames met in between, and there was a mini-explosion as a result. With it, the aggression had begun.

Krum didn't stop and ripped another spell towards the dragon, which was countered by another burst of fire. The result wasn't an explosion but a gush of black smoke spreading at an alarming rate.

The Fireball stood on her hind feet in alert caution. Her draconian brain telling her to be on alert. She stepped forward, keeping her eggs behind her.

Suddenly a spell came charging from her right, parting the smoke. From within the hole in smoke, one could see Krum with his wand raised, but the next second, he was gone. The dragon raised its wing to receive the spell, and the magic collided with the magic-resistant hide. The result was a puff of hot smother, but the dragon came out without a scratch.

"For the first time today, we see the power of dragonhide," Quinn's voice was heard throughout the stadium. "This power is the reason that even though the hide loses a chunk of its resistance when stripped of the carcass, the leather is still used to create under-armors for Hit Wizard and Aurors."

Krum ran around the rocky terrain, jumping from one boulder to another, trying to keep himself moving while keeping the dragon into the smoke.

'I just need one shot,' thought Krum, 'one spell would be enough to get to the egg.'

Just when his line of thought ended, Krum came to a screeching halt as his eyes caught a red from within the hazy smoke. His eyes widened in an instant as he understood what was coming.

"Shit!"

Without giving it a second thought, Krum jumped down from the boulder and slid down behind a tall piece of stone for cover. The second he squatted on the ground, deep red flames assaulted Krum's cover. He looked up and could see tongues of flames reaching out from the edges.

The second the flames stopped, Krum rolled over in an effort to get up. He was about to get up when his eyes caught a shift in the stone cover and looking up, he saw the Fireball's head peeking from above.

Krum sucked in a deep breath when he saw the jaw unhinge, and inside he saw red light at the end. He was about to face a dragon breath from point-blank range. In the life-and-death situation, Krum raised his wand and shoot the first spell that popped into his mind.

A murky yellow spell shot out of his wand, and with the Fireball's jaw opened, the magic entered the dragon's mouth. The dragon snapped her jaw close and screamed in pain from the effects of the spell.

.. .

Quinn stood near the ledge in the judge's box and watched Krum and the dragon with bright eyes.

"Ah, that was a spell that lacerates flesh," announced Quinn, "a dark curse — as expected from a Durmstrang student — a student of the dark arts."

Everyone in the judge's box momentarily removed their eyes from the arena and glanced at Quinn. They found it rare for a student of Hogwarts to not talk about dark arts with fear or disgust. Albus Dumbledore, the poster boy of anti-dark magic, had all but erased all traces of dark magic from the Hogwarts ground.

Dumbledore looked at Quinn's back and thought back to their first meeting. Quinn had told him that as long it was magic, he was interested.

'He identified the spell quite quickly,' thought Dumbledore, and well, his thoughts went in a very particular direction involving three very specific people. Two people with who he could find parallels with Quinn.. . and a young himself.

.. .

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Krum stared at the Chinese Fireball, and amidst the screams, he thought, 'This is the chance.' He clumsily waved his wand, and a good enough invisible spell hit the dragon in the eyes.

The dragon pulled her head back and used her wingtips to cover her eyes.

"Ah, another one, the Conjunctivitis Curse," said the announcer's voice," a curse that irritated the target's eyes, forcing them to swell shut. Dragons were notably susceptible to this curse because while their hide made them resistant to most spells, their eyes remained vulnerable. Another pro-tip for you people: while every other part of a dragon's body is durable as hell, their eyes are more squishy than ours. So poke 'em there because it hurts a lot."

According to his plans, Krum had only planned to temporarily impair the dragon's eyesight so that he could get to the egg and complete the task. But now, not only had impaired vision, but he had also launched a spell that caused injury to the dragon.

He knew this was the moment. Krum stood up and rushed to the middle of the arena with his eyes set on the golden prize.

The Chinese Fireball finally had enough; her mouth hurt, and she couldn't open her eyes; her babies were unprotected. She let her instincts take over and moved her head towards the direction of the nest; she could smell her own scent on the eggs.

A deep red illuminated her throat as she opened her jaw.

Krum was within spitting distance of the nest when he felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up. He turned back and saw a vivid jet of fire coming towards him. His eyes widened; he looked ahead and dove for the egg. His hands caught the egg as he rolled over to his back, and with a body roll, he was back onto his feet.

But his work wasn't over yet. He saw a dragon handler entering the arena, and the man pointed at the two large rocks, and Krum didn't need to be told twice. He sprinted and once again dove ahead, this time into the crevice between the two rocks.

"Aargh!" screamed Krum as a back was singed just before he could get to safety. He fell to the ground, but his hands clutched the egg as if it was the snitch in the World Cup finals.

Applause shattered the wintery air like breaking glass; Krum had finished.

- (Scene Break) -

Harry stood up, noticing dimly that his legs seemed to be made of marshmallows. He waited. And then Harry heard the whistle blow. He walked out through the entrance of the tent, the panic rising into a crescendo inside him. And now he was walking past the trees, through a gap in the enclosure fence.

He saw everything in front of him as though it was a very highly colored dream. There were hundreds and hundreds of faces staring down at him from stands that had been magicked there since he'd last stood on this spot. And there was the Horntail, at the other end of the enclosure, crouched low over her clutch of eggs, her wings half-furled, her evil, yellow eyes upon him, a monstrous, scaly, black lizard, thrashing her spiked tail, leaving yard-long gouge marks in the hard ground.

The crowd was making a great deal of noise, but Harry didn't know or care whether friendly or not. It was time to do what he had to do. .. to focus his mind, entirely and absolutely, upon the thing that was his only chance.. .

His mind went back to the two weeks he spent listening to Quinn, who he had just seen in the judge's box.

He raised his wand.

"Accio Golden Egg," he shouted. The egg didn't move at all. "Well, worth the try."

The Horntail covered the area around the eggs pretty well; as such, he couldn't use the transfiguration trick to Accio the eggs to him.. . and the grappling tactic.. . and the push-up tactic.. .

'Hell! Every tactic he taught me is useless with the Horntail in the way.' If Quinn had heard Harry's thoughts, he would've used every tactic he had taught Harry before staring him down for a solid minute.

He made his decision.

"Accio Firebolt!" he shouted.

In the judge's box, Quinn sighed and cut the Sonorus just so that he could mutter, "Idiot."

Harry waited, every fiber of him hoping, praying.. .. If it hadn't worked. .. if it wasn't coming. .. He seemed to be looking at everything around him through some sort of shimmering, transparent barrier, like a heat haze, which made the enclosure and the hundreds of faces around him swim strangely.. . .

And then he heard it, speeding through the air behind him; he turned and saw his Firebolt hurtling toward him around the edge of the woods, soaring into the enclosure, and stopping dead in midair beside him, waiting for him to mount. The crowd was making even more noise.. .. Quinn was shouting something. .. but Harry's ears were not working correctly anymore. .. listening wasn't necessary.. . .

He swung his leg over the broom and kicked off from the ground. And a second, later, something miraculous happened.. . .

As he soared upward, as the wind rushed through his hair, as the crowd's faces became mere flesh-colored pinpricks below, and the Horntail shrank to the size of a dog, he realized that he had left not only the ground behind, but also his fear.. .. Harry was back where he belonged.. . .

This was just another quidditch match, that was all. .. just another quidditch match and that Horntail was just another ugly opposing team.. . .

He looked down at the clutch of eggs and spotted the gold one, gleaming against its cement-colored fellows, residing safely between the dragon's front legs. He dived. The Horntail's head followed him; he knew what it was going to do and pulled out of the dive just in time; a jet of fire had been released precisely where he would have been having he not swerved away.

"Well, at least he can fly," sighed Quinn.

Harry tried a couple more times to draw out the Horntail and dodged the dragon's breath as many times as he attempted. But the Horntail didn't seem to want to take off; she was too protective of her eggs. Though she writhed and twisted, furling and unfurling her wings and keeping those fearsome yellow eyes on Harry, she was afraid to move too far from them.

"It seems that, unlike the other mother dragons, this one has taken an entirely different approach; a defensive approach," spoke Quinn, his sonorous back on.

Harry knew he had to take the risk. He started to fly low, sticking to the walls of the arena. Slowly the speed of state-of-the-art Firebolt increased; soon, the Horntail was having trouble keeping up with Harry, and he knew it was the right moment.

He made a hard turn, and with a booming speed of his Firebolt, he instantly closed the distance between him and the dragon. But the second he was close to the dragon, the Horntail swiped her head toward Harry and already had a fire working in her throat.

But the Gryffindor Seeker was ready; he pulled up and flew up hard on a sharp angle, just missing the fire. But despite the danger, Harry had a big smile on his face. His wand was in his hand, and from it extended an orange-red cord of light on whose other end hung a shining golden egg.

"Carpe Retracturm.. ." said the student, and outside the arena, the teacher finished, ".. . for the win."

Harry Potter had grabbed the golden egg, without injury and overall that he had done it faster than any other candidate.

'Well, that wasn't half bad,' thought Quinn in the box and shrugged, 'Well, I trained him; he should at least get this level of results.'

Quinn West - MC - "I will take partial credit."

Victor Krum - Status: Crisp - Approach: Conjunctivitis Curse.

Harry Potter - Status: Uninjured and feeling good - Approach: Carpe Retractum.

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