Don't own NGNL or Harry Potter.

The First Task

Talking to the other Champions was a little bit frightening, but hey. If Harry couldn't talk to two people a few years older than him, how was he going to face a dragon?

Krum was actually easy to talk to once he'd gotten used to the other boy's more brusque and quiet demeanor, and they'd even managed to talk a bit about Quidditch and Krum's life as a student that was employed before graduation. Something about them both being famous and scorning the attention for one reason or another was enough for them to form a tentative bond.

When Karkaroff appeared and started blustering about Harry trying to get information from Krum, Harry quickly bid him farewell and retreated, content that he'd managed to confirm that Krum knew about the dragons and was making plans against his. He looked over at the lurking Sora and Shiro and saw them leaning into each other, whispering furiously and punctuating their points with sharp gestures. "Guys?" He called out curiously, and the two snapped their heads over and locked onto him.

"How big is your Invisibility Cloak?" Sora demanded, and Harry blinked at the force behind the question.

"I mean it can hide me, Ron, and Hermione at the same time."

"Anyone else?" Shiro asked and Harry frowned as he tried to remember sneaking around with more than them. Sure Neville had snuck around with them against his will first year but they didn't have the cloak by then…

He settled for shrugging. "I don't know, I've never tried."

Sora hummed and rested his chin in his hand, red eyes turned away in thought. "And you've never tripped on it? If you three can fit in there it must swamp you alone."

"It's a bit big, but I think that's because I'm still a teen, and we have to squeeze for all of us to fit," Harry argued, and Sora blinked a little as he processed that and hummed again.

"Good to know. If there's an issue, we can always just pin the cloak up. Anyway," he clapped his hands together and started steering Harry to where the Beauxbaton's students were staying. "Time to tell the last champion about the Task."

Harry grumbled more out of habit and tried to purposefully walk slower, only to be thwarted by Sora waving his hand and making him feel lighter. "She has to already know," he complained, his heart not in it at all as some of the other school's students turned to stare at him. "I think it's safe to assume that she was told by somebody, even if it wasn't her teacher."

"But why assume when we can simply tell her and insure she knows?" Sora asked, clearly amused, and Harry couldn't argue against that.

As they got to near where the students were milling around most a boy walked up to them, tall and blond and scowling a little at their presence. Harry did his best to look apologetic, though he could just bet how indifferent the siblings looked to be intruding on the students' space. "Can I help you?" the boy finally asked, his scowl lightening up a little as he looked at Harry.

Harry gave a nervous smile and stuffed his hands into his pockets to hide how clammy they were getting. "Do you know where Fleur is? I wanted to tell her something."

The boy's patient expression dissolved into one of irritation and amusement, and he rolled his eyes a little. "Yeah, she's under that archway over there. Just look for the gaggle of guys, you can't miss her." He crossed his arms a little and leaned away from Harry, looking disappointed. He muttered something but it was too quiet for Harry to catch.

Harry stared at the guy until Shiro pinched him in the side and the came back to the present with a flinch. "Um, thanks." He offered the boy a nod but he was no longer paying attention to Harry, and the teen gave a sigh and walked over to the archway.

Sure enough, guys from all of the schools were there, orbiting around the Beauxbaton's Champion as she laughed with a small girl that looked too young to be attending school. He cast the siblings one more pleading look but Sora simply crossed his arms and watched him in amusement while Shiro drifted closer to one of the smitten boys to prod at him in curiosity. So Harry took a deep breath and stepped up. "Hey, Fleur?"

Immediately she paused in her laughing with the other girl to shoot him an irritated look, and he felt like he was being pulled in. Her hair seemed to glow in the sunlight, and her eyes sparkled even as she glared a little at him. "Yes? What is it?" She asked, and Harry felt his tongue turn to lead in his mouth.

That is, until Sora stepped between him and her, and gave a theatrically low bow. "Miss Delacour, my friend wished to speak to you in private regarding the First Task. Do you have a moment?"

With the girl's attention away from him Harry managed to take in a ragged breath and jumped a little as ice filled his veins in his left arm. He whipped his head around to see Shiro staring at him, her arm lowering. Had she just poked him?

When he looked up he found Fleur and Sora staring at him, Sora with a smirk and Fleur with something like puzzlement. Suddenly the girl looked normal – beautiful, certainly, but not like her very presence could make Harry stare until he forgot how to breathe. "She can spare you a moment," the god said, and Harry nodded.

After that it was easy enough to clumsily explain that the next challenge was dragons, the Beauxbaton's champion watching him with wariness and something like pity in her eyes. It made Harry want to snap at her, to tell her he knew that her headmistress had told her, but he bit down on the desire viciously and excused himself when he was done.

"Well done," Shiro said, but Harry just shrugged.

"Let's get out of here," he muttered, and Sora hummed in understanding but didn't say anything.

Harry found that he appreciated it.

The day of the Task had Harry trying to keep Hermione calm at breakfast as she gripped her spoon hard enough to start bending it. "I feel like between the two of us I should be the more worried one," he pointed out, but she ignored him and dug her spoon into a bowl of yogurt hard enough to make it hit the bottom with an audible sound.

"There's no way we had enough time," she muttered, terrified whilst serving herself food. "There's no way you won't get into huge trouble for having Dobby help you." She continued to mutter about all of the ways this could fail and Harry sighed.

"Hermione, if they're mad about Dobby helping me the worse they can do if disqualify me from the tournament. By your own words that's still better than anything the rest of the Tournament will hold."

That calmed her, but only enough that she could actually swallow some of her food. "Dobby has the – thing now, right?"

"Yes, Hermione," Harry said, squashing some of his amusement in the face of his friend's very genuine terror. "Dobby has the thing."

Before either of them could continue their rather stilted code talking they saw Sora walking up, wearing a completely different outfit. Instead of the Hogwarts outfits he'd been throwing on every day he was dressed like a muggle, a yellow t-shirt and jeans making up the outfit with a rather nice dress coat on over the shirt. Shiro was behind him and similarly dressed with a sailor-like outfit on and her own coat over it. Sora clapped his hands and Harry was surprised to note he even had white cotton gloves on. "Glad to see you two so chipper this morning! Ready to face a dragon and make it out in one piece?"

Something about his confidence made Harry sit up straight and feel some of his anxiety drain away. He gave the god a shaky smile. "Yeah, definitely ready to have this behind me." He then paused and, feeling a bit foolish, waved his hand over the pair. "What's all this about?"

"Hm?" Sora looked down at himself before making a sound of realization. "We have to dress the part. After all, we're two of the representatives that make up the authority of the school the cup sent you to when you were selected as Champion."

Harry had been drinking some pumpkin juice as he listened and was quick to put it down before he choked. "What? Really?"

Sora looked serious for a few seconds longer before smirking and reaching out to steal some of the food off of the Gryffindor table. "Well, that's what we told them. After all, the Goblet thought you were a contender from a different school; it was child's play to have our third show up and say that we were magically contacted about the event and our supposed Champion. He'll be serving as another judge, so don't worry about that."

More of the tension leeched out of Harry's shoulders at that. The gods hadn't steered him wrong yet; he'd trust them on this one. "Is Dobby ready?" He asked instead, taking another sip of juice and smiling in amusement as Hermione nodded her approval at him eating more of his breakfast.

Shiro nodded while Sora leaned back a bit. "Yup, he's ready and waiting for the Task. We tested him apparating into the arena and no one investigated it, so we're pretty sure any security measures in the area don't take into account house-elves." Anything else he was going to say was cut off as more people streamed into the room so he simply clapped a hand on Harry's shoulder and walked off with a "see you on the other side," Shiro taking Sora's hand as they left.

Soon enough the Champions were called, and Harry swallowed to try and keep his stomach calm. He followed behind the older students, ignoring the looks all of them shot him at one point or another. He barely remembered going into the Champions' tent and receiving his living dragon statue, only registering the number attached to it.

And the brutal-looking spiked tail.

One by one the other Champions went, and Harry stared blankly at the statuette rather than meet any of their eyes. The tiny dragon seemed to take joy in chasing Harry's fingers, and he entertained himself with that until his name was called out. Then he took a deep breath, put the statuette in one of his pockets, and went out into the arena.

There were scorch marks all around the arena, Harry noted. It made sense, certainly, but it was still the first thing to catch his eye.

Better that than the crowd, he realized a moment later as the sound washed over him like the tide. He winced a little at the volume and tried his best to ignore them again, casting a sweeping glance around for the dragon and judges.

The judges were placed halfway between the dragon and the other end of the arena, giving them enough space to not be immediately target by the dragon but still giving them time to react should it turn its attention to the audience and overcome the shields that had been put up for the event.

Harry took all of this in, looked at the snarling dragon that watched him with narrowed, furious eyes, and took a deep breath.

The dragon locked onto the movement and did the same.

Then Harry struck.

"Incarcerous!" he shouted, pointing his wand at the dragon's muzzle. Immediately rope shot out and wrapped around the creature, and Harry had the privilege of seeing a dragon look surprised before he turned and bolted to one of the rocks that looked like it could protect him from some of the dragon fire.

As he ran, Harry could hear a scraping sound and risked a chance to look back. The dragon was clawing at its mouth, trying to tear away the rope that was holding stronger than any standard rope possibly could. Relief hit Harry like a bucket of cold water. "It worked," he breathed, hardly able to believe what he was seeing. Certainly he'd trusted the gods when they said house-elf magic could strengthen his own spells or make them more complicated, but to see it in action was a completely different thing.

Then the dragon ripped itself free and Harry ducked down behind the rock as the dragon roared and breathed fire at him, uninjured save for what it had done to itself and its pride. After a few seconds the world went silent, and Harry froze, dread creeping up his spine.

He needed to move.

Now.

He dove away just as the rock behind him exploded from the force of the dragon's tail swing, chunks hitting him in the chest and arms as he drew them up to protect his face. He stumbled away and waved his wand, shouting, "Protego!" just to make sure he would get to safety without losing a limb.

He managed to regain his bearings and looked at the snarling dragon from behind another rock, his mind racing. He remembered Blank's instructions – he needed to distract the dragon even further, but now he needed to get its attention away from him, even for a few seconds. He pondered for a moment before an idea came to him and, with great pride, Harry flicked his wand and said, "Expecto Patronum".

His Patronus burst into existence, the silver stag standing beside him for a moment, and Harry almost missed the way the crowd hushed suddenly at the sight as he sent it out to distract the dragon for a few seconds. It bounded over the rock and Harry listened for the sound of roaring and fire breathing without the accompanying heat before he looked over again.

The dragon's eyes were locked onto his Patronus, snarling at it and trying to burn it alive, growing more frustrated with every failure. Harry seized the opportunity presented to him and point his wand out, yelling, "Accio egg!"

There were a few jeers from the Audience as some of them managed to catch what he'd said, but all of them came to an abrupt halt as the egg appeared next to him and Harry wrapped his arms around it, securing his victory.

Being so far from everyone else Harry didn't think any of them noticed him giving Dobby, safely hidden from sight beneath Harry's Invisibility Cloak, a thankful look and whisper of gratitude.