Chapter 536: The first task(2)
The reason this was foolish was that due to living in the mountains the species relied on scent and hearing to determine the location of prey rather than sight. As a result all the blinding of it did was piss off the dragon that immediately chose to torch Krum in retaliation. Clearly this result was unexpected and the boy took some serious burns on his shoulder as he dove out of the way. Krum gritted his teeth from behind the rock he was taking refuge in and got aggressive with the creative use of the bird summoning charm "Avis" to summon a flock of pigeons in front of the dragon.-
This was a good move as the overload of smell and sound that the spell caused the dragon was enough for him to slip under it and snatch the golden egg before retreating. There was of course the moment that the dragon raged out after discovering the loss of an egg before the handlers put it under again and transported it out of the arena. The next dragon was the Hungarian horntail that definitely was not in the best of moods as it shot fire at the crowds regularly.-
As it turned out there were a group of hit wizards tasked with specifically raising a barrier around the crowd to keep out any attacks towards it. It was an interesting variation of the standard Protego charm that needed more than one caster in exchange for being much stronger. Fleur ended up with this dragon however which proved to be a problem for her. She tried to get it with an illusion of rats but the angry reptile bathed the whole arena in flames dispersing it and forcing her to take cover.-
Even worse was that unlike most brooding dragon the Horntail species had the philosophy of active defense and thus didn't just remain stationary but came after Fleur fully intent on killing her. The crowd watched in nervous excitement as the bird woman ran for her life while taking horrible burns and more than a few cuts and scrapes as she snatched the golden egg and ran out the exit. That was the last straw for the angry dragon as it broke it's chain and attempted to chase her through the tunnel with even the spells of the handlers being rendered useless to calm the beast.-
Nick raised his hand palm forward and with a clench of his fist adamantium chains were transfigured from the stone ground and bound the dragon in place with it's snout shut. Eventually the handlers managed to get the dragon under control and Nick released the transfiguration under the awestruck eyes of the crowd. He earned applause for his assistance and a thankful nod from Dumbledore as the task continued after a short break. Harrys dragon was the chinese fireball which he was admittedly much better prepared to take on than the other two champions were.-
It showed too as he first used transfiguration to create high walls of stone to block the dragons senses before he disillusioned himself and snuck up behind it and took the egg smoothly. The walls were also a trick that made the dragon think that he was coming from the front when he was infact coming from behind it. With that performance done the first task was over and it was time for the champions to get their scores. Harry of course got the top score for cleverly misdirecting the creature and taking his egg without any injury. Krum came up in second place since his tactic was pretty textbook and he adapted to the ineffectiveness of it.-
Fleur was in last as her entire performance was merely a bunch of failure and panicking on her part. She glared at Nick when the judges mentioned how he had felt the need to step in to contain the dragon after she fled. For once her irritation was not misplaced as that was a low blow on Bagman's part that could have been done without. All it served to accomplish was make the veela more angry at Nick which was a bad idea to begin with.-
Madame Maxime and Dumbledore both publicly chastised the large man for doing it too. The funny part was that the man was likely only doing it to try and hype the tournament more for the papers but probably didn't realize that Rita who was in charge of reporting on it refused to write about Nick. He knew her secret as an Animagus and made it clear he would spill it if she tried to report on him like she usually does everyone else. To put it bluntly it was a wasted effort to try and create drama like this with Nick for publicity.
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