Harry Potter and the Monster Queen - Part Five
Dorothy Blackwell, principal of Winslow Academy and all around productive member of society, awoke with a start.
"There you go," a chipper and eerily familiar voice said. "She's all yours."
She blinked a few times, trying to adjust her senses to take in the place where she was.
Hadn't she been in her office? That was right. She was trying to find a way to squeeze out more money from their yearly budget. She had to choose whether to cut the art electives or the sports and... and this was not her office.
Shaking her head a little, she heard a door clacking shut behind her. But that hardly registered. No, her attention was, instead, on the multitude of gizmos, knick-knacks, thingies, and doodads arrayed around her on desks and shelves.
There was a chicken on a stand off to one side, right next to the ugliest hat she'd ever seen. The walls were covered in paintings of old men in strange costumes. She looked the other way, trying to make sense of things. A bookshelf sat on her other side, and her eyes idly fell on the titles that she could actually decipher.
Gadding with Ghouls, Break with a Banshee, Voyages with Vampires.
"I see you're eyeing my collection," someone said. Blackwell's head snapped around until she was facing forwards and into the sparkling eyes of a very elderly gentleman in a lime green bathrobe over navy-blue pyjamas. "They're all signed you know."
"Huh?"
"Indeed. The pride of my collection of ancient and mysterious tomes," the old man said. "Terribly sad what happened to Gilderoy, don't you agree?"
"What?"
"Hrm?" he asked while leaning back into his seat. Then his eyebrows rushed to the top of his head. "Oh my, how rude of me. I forgot to ask. Would you like a lemon drop?"
***
Two weeks later
Harry beamed, one arm raised high above his head with the shiny gold of a dragon's egg firmly in his grasp. It was like catching the snitch, only instead of running from an angry Draco Malfoy he had to run from an angry dragon. The rush was unlike anything he'd ever felt and the cheer of the crowd as he spun around the arena for a victory loop was almost deafening.
He scanned the crowd, looking for his friends amongst the students, dignitaries and tourists that filled the stadium. He found them in a sea of red and gold, Hermione screaming like a proper quidditch fan and Ron grinning from ear to ear.
But all things had to end, and so it was that a bright-eyed Harry Potter landed near the podium where the judges were whispering to one another, and tucked the egg under one arm. He wanted to try and listen in on their hushed conversation ,but Pomfrey walked up to him with the sort of brisk no-nonsense look that had every injury he'd ever received twinging in trepidation.
"Mr. Potter," she said. "You will accompany me to the medic's tent," she declared.
"But I didn't even get singed," he said while surreptitiously hiding the singed edges of his robes behind his back.
She arched an eyebrow at him, then eyed him up and down before whipping her wand out. A few cursory charms later and Harry watched the witch's face sour. "Very well, Mr. Potter," she said. "You're a little exhausted and ought to drink something, but I can't find any injuries. You will present yourself to me the moment you feel unwell."
"Yes, Madam Pomfrey," he lied with a grin.
She huffed and started to turn, probably to walk back to her tent. "Oh, and well done out there, Mister Potter."
He wasn't done smiling when the judges, including that dour woman with the wide eyes who was shaking like a leaf, raised their wands (and in the Blackwell woman's case, a posterboard) and displayed their results. From Dumbledore he got a nine, and eight from the French headmistress and Bagman. The Blackwell woman gave him a ten, and the headmaster of Durmstrang gave him a two.
There was more cheering as his total was tallied. He waved at the crowd, then searched for where to go next. A waving Cedric Diggory was answer enough. The older Hufflepuff was sitting off to the side of the judge's box, Krum and Delacour next to him.
"Hey," Harry said as he approached. He noticed that all of the others had their golden eggs nearby and that they were guarding them as fiercely as the dragon had hers. "You all made it out alright?"
"We sure did," Cedric said. "Your score's a bit better than mine, you know?"
"Really?" Harry said. He probably shouldn't have sounded so elated, but he was still running off the victory high.
"Zat was some good flying," Krum said.
"Thanks," Harry said as he sat between the Durmstrang champion and Diggory. "I didn't get to see your attempts, but I'm sure they were impressive."
"With the amount of Omnioculars hanging around, I'm sure you'll see them before the day's out," Cedric said.
"She's coming out," Fleur said, the first time she's spoken since he'd climbed the stairs to their spot.
Turning, Harry noticed for the first time that his dragon had been moved back and replaced by a Hungarian Horntail with a steel clamp over its mouth and chains wrapping around its body. The red-scaled beast roared and fought against the hold of the dragon tamers, its hooked tail getting loose and swinging around, whipping the chains meant to hold it back with a clatter of steel on steel.
A few panicked moments later and the dragon was herded to the middle of the arena where it hunched over its nest and glared balefully at anyone who approached her.
The clamp over its mouth was removed and the dragon didn't wait before breathing a plume of white-hot fire at the nearest handlers.
The men and women in dragonhide robes scattered, pulling the loosened chains with them until all that was left in the arena was the dragon, the chain holding it in place, and the nest filled with decoy eggs.
A hush fell over the crowd, anticipation mounting until Harry could feel it in his bones. "Ladies and gentlemen," the announcer said in a hushed voice. "From Winslow Academy out in the colonies, Taylor Hebert!"
There was cheering, though not nearly as strong as he would have expected. Then again, he reasoned, the Hebert girl wasn't from Hogwarts, wasn't a Quidditch superstar and didn't have Fleur's looks.
Harry whistled and clapped a little harder as Taylor stumbled onto the arena ground. She stared around with wide eyes half-hidden by her large glasses and gave the crowd a small wave. Then her eyes locked onto the dragon and she paused.
The beast stared at the newcomer then gave out a dismissive snort.
"Oh, you are pretty," the girl said, her voice amplified by the arena's magic.
Harry watched as, without pulling out wand or staff, she started making her way towards the Hungarian Horntail. A few alarm shouts sounded out across the arena as the dragon took in a huge gulp of air and then breathed out a torrent of flame.
Taylor blinked at the onrushing wall of dragon's fire. "Simmie," she said, just loud enough that Harry could catch it with the magical amplification on her voice.
The fire split like the sea before Moses, the gout of flame turning into two lashing tendrils that scorched the ground and lit the grass on fire on either side of Taylor until the Hungarian Horntail stopped, took an even deeper breath, and roared out another wall of fire.
It was no more effective than that last attack. Taylor just raised a hand to shield her face as though the dragon's fire was no more inconvenient than a bright beam of sunlight. When the dragon was done trying to roast her, she placed both hands on her hips and shook her head. "Are you quite done?"
"Incredible! What a feat of wandless magic!" The announcer said.
"Scheisse," Krum said.
Harry didn't speak German but he sympathized with the sentiment.
The dragon growled, the spark of intelligence in its eyes only growing keener as Taylor nodded to herself and walked towards it. "I don't want to hurt you. I'd never hurt someone as pretty as you," she told the Horntail. "I just want to snuggle."
"She is, 'ow do you English say, insane?" Fleur whispered. She had her wand in hand and looked ready to jump out of the stands at a moment's notice.
"That's it, good girl," Taylor said as she came a little closer.
Then the Horntail whipped its head out, quick as a viper. Its maw, lined with hundreds of glimmering, dagger-like teeth, snapped the air a foot away from Taylor's outstretched hand.
The girl scrunched her face up, slowly brought her hand back, and turned until her back was to the dragon. She stomped off, rather petulantly, to the edge of the arena and spun back around.
The Horntail stared back. If dragons could speak, Harry was sure it would be saying something like 'your move' or maybe 'get in my belly.'
"It seems as though Miss Hebert has abandoned her original tactic. I wonder what new trick she has up her sleeve for us?" the announcer said.
Taylor shook her head. "I didn't want to do this," she said as she reached down and fiddled with her bracelet. With a snap-hiss, a familiar, meter-long staff appeared in her outstretched arm with a flash of pinkish light. She tilted the staff down until its flared head pointed towards the dragon. "
Abrakadabrah, Alakazam!"
Harry's blood ran cold. There was screeching and screaming in the crowd. A few of the dragon handlers near the arena dove for cover.
It all died down when a few seconds passed and nothing happened.
"Well, that was in bad taste," the announcer declared.
Harry wanted to agree, but his attention was grabbed by something, a distant glint of light from high above. Seeker-trained eyes turned to the sky, searching from one fluffy cloud to the next for the thing that had flashed. He was just about to give up when he noticed the clouds moving away from one spot right above them with unusual haste.
The sky, which had been a cheery bright blue, started to twist as tendrils of eerie green filled the sky. The clouds circled around. The wind picked up for a moment, then died down. The crowd hushed up, a growing sense of foreboding and dread filling them.
It was, he realised, like a dementor was present, only instead of soul-sucking fear, this one wanted to snuggle.
A beam, as wide around as Hagrid, pierced down from the heavens and crashed into the earth with enough force to make the entire stadium bounce. It screeched, the sound of the very air howling in demented agony. He squinted against the avada kedavra green light that filled the world for a few long seconds, bright enough that when, finally, it passed, he could still see its afterimage burned onto his retinas.
Taylor was standing a few paces away from where the beam had hit, her hair a little dishevelled, but she didn't look any the worse for wear.
The same couldn't be said for the dragon. The creature, moments ago a majestic beast designed to rip and tear, now had eyes as wide as hula-hoops and was shivering like one of Aunt Marge's dogs when she pulled up a sandal.
The dragon was focused on the meter-wide hole a few feet away from the tip of its snout, the rim still warm and curls of greenish smoke pouring out of it.
"Oh shucks, I missed," Taylor said before focusing on the dragon. "I didn't want to scare you, miss Dragon," Taylor said. "I just wanted to pet you."
***
Many thanks to
eschwartz and
ChaoticSky and the other weirdos on my Discord for doing the word things to this chapter.
