0573 Her Turn

Charlie’s wand tip was connected to a chain as he single-handedly led the Chinese Fireball dragon into the newly restored arena at a leisurely pace. He struggled to climb the steep, rocky slope leading up to the dragon’s nest.

Suddenly, due to an inadvertent misstep, Charlie’s boot slipped on a loose stone and he slid down the steep, gravelly ridge. This unexpected turn of events caused the watching Weasley children to instantly change color, their faces were drained of blood as they gasped in horror. Even Mr. Weasley, far away in Diagon Alley was so startled he toppled out of his cushioned armchair.

Of course, a simple fall wasn’t particularly frightening, but directly behind the tumbling Charlie was the Chinese Fireball!

‘Could it be that the first person to tragically die at the deadly claws and fangs of an enraged dragon would appear today, right before their very eyes?’

Just as everyone was sadly contemplating this impending gruesome tragedy, an utterly astonishing and unexpected scene unfolded in the arena—the massive scarlet Chinese Fireball nimbly lowered its gigantic, spiked head towards the fallen Charlie.

For a terrifying moment, the spectators were certain the dragon was about to open its mouth and swallow the helpless Charlie whole in one gulp. But instead of opening its deadly jaws, the Fireball simply used the tip of its lion-like snout to nimbly stop Charlie, successfully helping him ‘brake’ his fall.

The crowd gasped and cried out in shock at the dragon’s unusually gentle and timely intervention.

“Thank y—” Charlie said instinctively, but then he suddenly realized that many hundreds of wide, disbelieving eyes were fixed upon him and his strange interaction with the dragon.

So, Charlie quickly shut his mouth, and hastily picked up his wand which had tumbled from his grasp onto the ground. Then with his head down and taking quick strides, he hurried to resume his trek up the hillside.

“This dragon seems—” Neville watched the Fireball in bewilderment as it calmly, lazily followed behind Charlie’s hastening back. This dragon’s demeanor was completely unlike the other three dragons who were rampaging around agitated, snorting smoke and sparks. “It seems quite docile and friendly—”

“Well, after graduating, Charlie has been studying dragons at the preserve in Romania. Maybe he’s grown especially familiar with this particular Chinese Fireball. It’s entirely possible they’ve already become good friends, comfortable with each other—” Ginny hesitantly gave a relatively reasonable guess, though her voice still quivered with uncertainty, unable to fully rationalize the bizarre scene.

Charlie quickly led the oddly obedient Chinese Fireball to the foot of the fake mountain. Raising his wand and murmuring an incantation, he magically nailed the sturdy iron chain into the ground. Then, from a pouch at his waist, he carefully extracted several bright, deep red eggs. Gently, he nestled the real eggs into the nest.

Finally, Charlie delicately placed the final egg the golden egg that each champions were tasked with retrieving – into the center of the nest. His work complete, Charlie turned on his back and began quickly walking away from the dragon as if he had extremely pressing matters to attend to elsewhere.

As he passed by the patiently waiting Fireball, Charlie lowered his voice to an urgent whisper and advised rapidly, “Please be careful. Don’t crush those real eggs in your enthusiasm—”

With those hastily told words of warning, Charlie quickened his pace and strode out of the arena, not glancing back.

Now, with Charlie’s exit, the magnificent Chinese Fireball completely occupied the enormous magical screen displaying the unfolding scene to the audience. As the dragon shifted its weight and flexed its wings, the previously hushed arena exploded into buzzing, speculative chatter, the spectators were no longer able to contain their swirling questions and incredulity at the Fireball’s bizarre behavior.

Hearing the sudden eruption of human voices in a confusing barrage from all around, the Fireball looked momentarily perplexed and uneasy. Instinctively seeking security, it began circling around its own tail in an anxious motion. However, in its flustered state, the dragon accidentally tripped over the hefty iron chain tying it to the ground.

The entire pers—no, the entire dragon stumbled a few steps, and with a bang, its head slammed into the transfigured rock mountain.

Pff— It was rare to see such a silly-looking dragon, and many people couldn’t help but laugh out loud.

“Please maintain an air of competence and dignity—” The slightly dizzy dragon was struggling to get up and shake its head when a dissatisfied voice suddenly rang out beside its ear.

‘What a ridiculously comical joke this whole scenario was!’

Sirius currently within the dragon shell, suddenly felt the intense urge to unleash a string of passionate curses. He wasn’t a real dragon, and suddenly transforming and controlling such a huge body, being able to stand up and move was already very impressive, okay?

Few hours ago, in the dark underground cave serving as the dragons’ temporary shelter prior to the Task, Bryan had suggested a rather weird plan to Sirius.

The plan was for him to shift into his Animagus form, where enchanted fabrics and mannequins, prepared in advance by Bryan, would be rapidly transfigured into the approximate outward appearance and proportions of an adult Chinese Fireball dragon.

Following the quick assembly of this transfigured layer over Sirius’s Animagus body, Bryan would use runes, charms such as the Undetectable Extension on certain components, and a complex series of interconnected spells to imbue the fake-dragon with a wider range of motion and degrees of freedom.

The interior space would be magically expanded to comfortably accommodate Sirius’s Animagus form, allowing him to efficiently direct the dragon shell’s movements from within, almost like a Muggle puppeteer operating a huge puppet.

Additional spells would even give this fake-dragon the temporary ability to generate controlled puffs of smoke and brief bouts of real flame, as well as to emit passable (if perhaps somewhat unconvincing) roars, growls, and other sounds of a real Dragon.

It wouldn’t stand up to long or close scrutiny by true dragon experts, but Bryan was confident the distant audience would be sufficiently deceived.

Upon hearing this audacious and unprecedentedly ludicrous proposal from Bryan, even the generally adventurous Sirius was initially struck by an overwhelming sense of uncertainty and amusement.

However, Bryan’s persistent persuasive efforts, coupled with the unavoidable fact that Sirius was indeed the only individual present with the ability to transfigure into an Animagus, ultimately eroded Sirius’s initial resistance to this bizarre plan. 

Moreover, the thought of participating in the Triwizard Tournament in such a manner did, indeed, appeal to Sirius’s innate sense of mischief and inclination towards audacious activities—

Thus, in the end, Sirius agreed, albeit with lingering hesitations about the feasibility and potential risks associated with this. After hastily preparing within the Fireball shell until he got a passable degree of control over its functions, Sirius the fake-dragon was taken to the arena by Charlie.

Despite his agreement to the plan, now that he was thrust into the spotlight before a stadium full of spectators, Sirius couldn’t suppress the anxiety, worry churning in his gut that someone would discern that the lethargic Fireball in the arena was not what it appeared to be. 

Concentrating intently, he carefully focused on manipulating the dragon shell’s uncoordinated forelegs and hind legs, and the sensation was bizarrely unnatural, like an unsettling waking dream.

Fighting the impulse to simply be motionless, Sirius firmly forced the false-dragon to take several unsteady, cautious steps away from the nest, ensuring its clumsy feet avoided both the genuine scarlet eggs and the lone golden egg in the nest. Reaching what he estimated to be a suitable distance, he awkwardly rotated the awkward dragon shell to face the nest directly. 

Then, standing at the edge of the nest, he imitated the Swedish Short-Snout and Welsh Green dragons from before, letting out a roar towards the sky!

Rowoooooooo!

Not scary at all— Moreover, this Chinese Fireball’s roar sounded somewhat dog-like.

“Ahem! AHEM!”

Faced with the puzzled, scrutinizing looks emerging on the faces of the judges as they stared curiously towards the oddly behaving Fireball, Bryan gave a series of overly loud and conspicuous coughs, drawing attention to himself away from the unconvincing “dragon”.

Then, Bryan began to enthusiastically say in a tone one of sincerity,

“The dragon handlers responsible for the well-being and transportation of this Chinese Fireball have informed me that, unfortunately, the creature has been experiencing a rather significant illness since its arrival here at Hogwarts. The poor thing seems to have had some difficulty, hmmm, acclimating and adapting to its temporary change in environment.

And, the food it needs has not been suiting its delicate constitution of late, resulting in rather acute gastric distress and a recurrent lack of appetite. Moreover, I am told this thus-weakened dragon has grown quite timid, panicky and easily frightened by the, eh, unusually large and eager grouping of unfamiliar humans surrounding and gawking at it.” Bryan shook his head sadly as he conveyed this tragic tale.

As Bryan’s creative narrative unfolded, dancing upon the edge between barely-plausible and utterly absurd, the corners of Dumbledore’s mouth, barely visible beneath his silvery-white beard and mustache, began to twitch uncontrollably and the self-restraint cultivated from a hundred years of life almost failed to hold up.

Beside Dumbledore, Madam Maxime’s initially confused expression gradually switched into one of earnest care as she absorbed Bryan’s words, her already swelling eyes widened even further in surprise and concern for the allegedly sickly dragon.

In stark contrast to her reaction, Karkaroff made no effort whatsoever to conceal his blatant discontent. He didn’t suspect that there was any problem; dragons were far from his areas of expertise.

Rather, Karkaroff was simply enraged by the undeniable good fortune of that Granger girl, the fourth, unplanned participant from Hogwarts. Not only had she inexplicably wormed her way into competing but now the one she had drawn what was indisputably the least ferocious, most docile dragon to face in the Task. The injustice of it all made Karkaroff grind his yellowed teeth in impotent fury, glaring broodingly at the silly-looking scarlet dragon in the arena below.

On the other hand, after hearing Bryan’ explanation, the two nostrils on Ludo Bagman’s flat nose excitedly flared outwards. He turned his head to look at the arena and shouted in a high-spirited tone,

“Ladies and gentlemen, the final dragon has now arrived in the arena to make its grand debut before us! Like all of you, I am eagerly anticipating the entrance of the fourth and last champion, Miss Hermione Granger! Ah, but before the young witch joins us, please grant me the honor of taking a few moments to properly introduce Miss Granger to everyone!”

Ludo’s wand was pressed against his own throat. “Miss Granger is the only underage wizard in this Triwizard Tournament, and the reason she was specially selected is that she is an outstanding young witch. She is a fourth-year student in Gryffindor House at Hogwarts, and every professor who has taught her has given remarkably consistent evaluations of her. They believe that Miss Hermione Granger is one of the most exceptional magical talents in recent years!”

“What?” The young wizards stared at Ludo Bagman in surprise, and Fred said in astonishment, “Do you reckon she slipped Bagman a hefty bag of galleons before the Task? I can’t think of any other reason he’d be giving her such an absurdly lavish introduction.”

“I guess he bet a lot of galleons on Hermione—” George said with a frown. “It’s utterly stupid. He doesn’t need to promote Hermione, right? Only a dark horse can win big money. If it were me, I’d do it sneakily—”

“We all know Ludo has never had much of a brain—” Fred added. He was about to say something else when Angelina suddenly exclaimed, “Quick, look, she’s appeared. Hermione is over there!”

So, the Gryffindors and students familiar with Hermione stopped discussing Ludo’s abnormal judgment and craned their necks to look towards the entrance tunnel.

Breathe, breathe, breathe. Everything before her eyes was like a vividly colored dream. Hermione saw thousands of blurry faces on the stands looking at her, and their gazes seemed to carry tangible pressure, as if they would press her into the soil.

The air was filled with a strong smell of sulfur. Hermione, who had been silently reciting the word ‘Summoning Charm’, was momentarily dazed by this smell. Then, her brain automatically gave a reasonable guess that this smell was caused by the flames breathed out by the dragons.

Hermione’s thin body swayed for a moment because her sensitive brain automatically imagined the earth-shattering scene of those dragons spewing out their breath. The images conjured up by her brain caused her to suddenly feel suffocated. Everything was spinning before her eyes, and even standing was a very difficult thing.

‘Where am I? What am I going to do?’ The psychological preparation that had lasted for so long seemed to fail at this moment. Hermione dizzily thought, oh, the Summoning Charm. She seemed to only remember this word, but why did she remember the Summoning Charm?

Every passing second felt as long as a year. Hermione suddenly had the urge to turn around and escape. She wanted to leave this arena that made her suffocate and suffer. However, just as she was about to put this impulse into action, Hermione found that her feet were stuck dead to the ground. This was not the effect of any magic, but another obsession that was restraining her desire to escape!

Many people had worked hard for a long time to let her live and succeed, right? How could she let them lose face?

All along, hadn’t she wanted to prove that even those of Muggle-born origin could become the most outstanding wizards, just like Professor Watson? And now she finally had such a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity!

Gradually, a glimmer of light appeared in Hermione’s dazed pupils.

‘Cast aside distracting thoughts, Hermione. You can do it. This is very simple for you!’

The chaotic colors before her eyes finally became orderly. She saw the dragon, right at the foot of the mountain, waiting for her.

Hermione took a deep breath and exhaled heavily. The next second, under the witness of countless gazes, the pale yet determined Hermione raised her wand towards the sky!

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