Bab 350: Chapter 350: The Long Way Round
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I would like to thank my beta, Awdyr, for his help in this chapter.
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28 March 1995, Greengrass Manor
"Probably, but hopefully it won't be in a very long time."
Then a soft voice spoke up, "Umm, Daph, Harry, what was that about?" Oh, yeah, Astoria was there. He forgot about that. That was bound to be very awkward to explain.
Harry watched as Daphne gently let Astoria know a few snippets of what they experienced in the last few years. The younger girl's poker face was impressive for a twelve-year-old. Then again, he killed the World Serpent when he was her age so that kinda put things into perspective.
Still, her neutral expression was obviously making Daphne uncomfortable. To be fair, where Daphne tended to be reserved, Astoria was always outgoing. It probably had to do with her curse. Not the magic itself, of course, but the acceptance of one's mortality especially for a young child, would put everything in perspective. Everyone handled it differently, but one of the common ones was the idea of not caring about the consequences of their actions. No, it wasn't that exactly, it was more like the lack of care of offending someone. She didn't hesitate to do something that she liked because she stopped caring what other people thought about it.
This was probably one of the few times where he saw Astoria looking very serious. It reminded him very much that she was still Daphne's sister, still her father's daughter.
In the end, the girl just gave them both a good look, "So, let me get this straight. Harry's mum is still alive somehow despite Godric's Hollows being burned to the ground, and she's the Red Witch from the paper. Over the course of last year, she's been sneakily taking over the country in Dumbledore's absence, and now that You-Know-Who is back, they've been fighting. For some reason, she pretended to be a fake Unspeakable during the tournament to somehow use the power of a broken prophecy – because those are a thing too – to somehow gain power, and almost got everyone in Durmstrang killed. Harry's stopped it but was trapped for a bit, while everyone else thought he died, but now he's back and the two of you are dating."
Harry nodded, "Sounds about right."
The girl then continued, "And also, the woman happened to teach you blood magic, which you agreed to because you wanted to heal me and the fact that I'm better because of what you learned from her and secretly have been using to heal me."
It was Daphne's turn to nod, "Yes."
The younger girl raised her hands in exasperation, "You're all fucking insane. What even is your life?"
"Language!" Daphne reproached.
"Are you out of your mind? I'm bloody twelve not five and this situation deserves a few cuss words. Do you have any idea just how mad you sound? If I didn't know you any better, I would have asked Mum and Dad to get you to Saint Mungo's."
"Hey, it's not that unbelievable!" Harry protested, doing his best to suppress his growing grin.
"Not unbelievable? Durmstrang, one of the biggest fortresses and schools in Europe was almost destroyed, and with it, half of the diplomats and academics in the continent. It would have crippled the entirety of Europe and probably caused another Great War."
The last Potter nodded, "That sounds about right."
The young girl just raised her hand and growled, "You know what, I'm going to my room. Hopefully, this is all a fancy dream or a hallucination."
She just walked away without saying anything else. For the first time since the encounter, Harry felt slightly hesitant. He didn't expect her to just run away, "Is she going to be alright?"
"Yes, she'll be fine. Astoria is stronger than you think. She just needs a few hours to process everything. She'll probably be madder at me than you, to be honest."
"Why?"
Daphne looked away for a bit, "Because we used to be inseparable when we were younger. Back then, we did everything together and shared everything. It was the only way to have any sort of fun in the house. Mum does her best, but she can be very strict when it comes to our lessons. And dad was, well, dad. We used to travel a lot to find any possible cure for Astoria's curse, and they were both stressed, especially when the gold started running a bit dry when a few of our plants ended up dying without Dad being in Britain to take care of them with his crest. I haven't really had to hide anything from her before Hogwarts and I didn't want to involve her with our shenanigans afterwards. You know what she's like. She would have jumped at the chance of having an adventure without even caring about the dangers or her health."
Harry said nothing because there was nothing, he could say to comfort Daphne. What she said was true and he couldn't change the past. Still, he let Daphne hold him tightly as she revealed that and decided to change the subject after a few minutes of silence, "So, how were the tasks I missed? I have to say that I'm kinda curious."
"I didn't go there, Harry. Did you forget?"
"Oh, I remember. I just assumed you read about them in the paper or something."
The blonde rolled her eyes, "Fine. As I said, I don't know the specifics, but the fourth task was in Nebelheim. It was just a standard duelling tournament, really. Pretty boring, compared to the other tasks at least, but it was almost a month long. It's probably the event that got the most gold, since tickets were relatively cheap until the final round, and they apparently got businesses from all over Europe to rent shops in a marketplace that they built especially for the event. They really organized everything very well and it paid off big time. I can't believe I'm saying this, but the Weasley twins ended up stopping Hogwarts from sinking in these rankings. One of them came in third and the other fifth. I think Diggory was ninth as well. I don't remember which position Johnson held, but she was somewhere in the top twenty. McGonagall looked definitely happy about the results. However, there was a curious case of theft during the finals. They're still investigating what happened, and keeping everything quiet to avoid the scandal, but Dad heard that it was actually two artefacts that were stolen, specifically, Megingjörð and Gjallarhorn."
Harry froze at that, "Thor's belt of strength and Heimdall's horn. I remember reading about them when we researched possible prophecies for each school. The belt was prophesized to be used to kill the last of the giants, and the horn was said to herald the start of Ragnarök."
"My thoughts exactly. Dumbledore obviously used them for another magical release of some sort, but I don't know anymore that you do. The newspapers didn't have any other information on the matter and neither do my father's contacts."
"What about the fifth task?"
"A chariot race. The champions were tasked to build and enchant their own chariots and race them across the country. They were penalized if the government needed to intervene to preserve the statute of secrecy. The race actually started without them having any chariots, so they had to decide whether to focus on building the chariot, or just wing it to save some time. Delacour actually won that one, France's second victory."
"And how did Hogwarts do?" Harry asked, knowing that there was a reason she omitted the whole thing.
"We came in last," Daphne answered while looking a bit embarrassed, "It was a bit of a scandal. None of the delegation had taken the Enchanting NEWT elective, so they essentially used normal charms constantly, which sometimes failed and by the time they were halfway through, everyone was too exhausted by the casting to do anything else. They waited for hours for one of them to recover enough to continue the race. McGonagall was in Hogwarts at the time to make sure the wards were maintained and left the decision-making to a vote. Diggory won, of course, and personally chose the teams without even considering that they needed enchantments. To be fair, the nature of the task was announced to be a race and nothing more than that, so he probably gambled on the fact that it would be a short one and lost. Anyway, it's not that big of a deal, we're now tied in second place with the Greek, a far cry from the projections at the start of the tournament."
"And the broken prophecy?" he asked.
"I have no idea. We never really researched prophecies in Spain. The only notable thing that I could find was the sudden death of the Duchess of Alba, but that might be a coincidence."
Harry hummed. He expected this, a bit. He hadn't known of Nero's prophecy back in Rome. There were so many prophecies, some hundreds if not thousands of years old. There was no reason for Dumbledore to be obvious when breaking them.
Still, it wasn't his problem. Not anymore. He was done trying to save Europe from whatever they were planning if no one else was going to care anyway. He was going to get Daphne to fulfil her obligation to the tournament and have her and her family stay as far away from Britain as he could. He wouldn't involve himself with the Light or Dark once more. He would be far away from their machinations. After all, he couldn't make a decision about Ragnarök if he wasn't there anymore. No matter what Mordred said, he would not be this prophesized hero. He refused.
Instead of showing how much the thought unsettled him, he gave the blonde a bright smile, "So, I'm guessing we're going to Greece in a few days then."
Daphne nodded, "I suppose so. So, you're to reveal to the world that you're still alive then?"
Harry thought about it and had to admit that the blonde did have a point. The only advantage he got from the whole mess in Durmstrang is that everyone thought that he was dead. Daphne's grief was proof that it wasn't some kind of hoax, and both Dumbledore and Grindelwald had no reason to suspect that there was any trick to it. Any use of clairvoyance would return no sign of him for months.
That was his way out, to finally escape and leave this place, build his legacy somewhere else far away from Europe, well, away from the Champions of Light and Dark, more than anything, "Now that I think about it, it would be better to just remain hidden."
"So, you're not coming then?"
Harry shook his head, "Of course I am. Do you seriously think I would leave you alone in Greece of all places?"
"Then how are you planning on staying hidden? You haven't exactly been subtle so far. You said that you talked the Longbottom and Lily also knows that you're alive. I can get Astoria to not say anything, but I think the cat is already out of the bag."
To be perfectly honest, Harry wasn't exactly worried about Lily or Neville blabbing. The boy who lived was stuck in an impregnable castle and no one would really take him seriously if he said anything, especially with no connection to the outside world. Lily, though, well, he didn't think she would do anything in fear of retaliation more than anything. Harry already showed her that he could easily block whatever remained of her connection to her dimension. Still, he could go and visit Longbottom just to make sure he wouldn't make a mess of things.
No, he could hide his survival without too much trouble, as long as there wasn't a giant spotlight there, and the European tournament was definitely that. Ideally, he wouldn't just go to Greece with Daphne, but actually compete alongside her in case something happened.
To compete, his name would need to be in the delegation. From the looks of it, anyone who hadn't taken their OWLS yet had returned to Hogwarts after the war started, apart from a few people at the request of their parents.
Harry looked at the Elder Wand in his hand, an idea slowly taking place in his mind. Yes, this could work. A small smile started to grow on his face. He was about to tell Daphne about his plan, only to notice that the blonde looked nervous for some reason, "I don't like the look on your face. It always makes me worried."
"What?" he answered with a fake indignant look on his face, "There's nothing wrong with my face."
"You're doing your 'I have an insane idea that might just work' face. Tell me I'm wrong."
Harry snorted, "Hey, my ideas are perfectly reasonable."
"So, you do have an idea, then."
"Fine," he groaned, "I have an idea, but I'll need a bit of preparation to pull it off. I guess I'll have to talk to Arcturus sooner than I expected."
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AN: I'll be honest here, I'm not sure about this chapter. It might be the fact that I'm still sick and needed a bit of a breather, or it might be the fact that the last few chapters were pretty eventful, but it felt a bit right to slow things down a bit for a chapter or two. I've been feeling like shit for almost a week now and it's kinda messing with me. It's kinda hard to write an eventful chapter when I can barely focus. Honestly, I'm surprised I was able to finish this one.
In case you were curious, the tasks I described in the chapter were ones that I actually planned out to be real tasks for the tournament that I was going to write. Halfway through the Earth 2 arc, I decided to have Harry return a few months after he disappeared since I felt like the tournament whole thing was getting repetitive and that it would have achieved nothing, and chose to return when things would get a bit different. There were a few subplots that I was planning on making, which could have been interesting, but I decided against it.
Still, it would have been nice to expand the lore in Nebelheim (I had a pretty nice bit of Norse lore planned and the fight for the Gjallarhorn would have been cool to write) and in Spain (I was hoping to write something of a serial killer killing magical Nobility there, which would be intersected into the broken prophecy theme that's rampant around the story).
Anyway, I have something pretty special in mind for the next task and as a small hint, it'll be a bit different from the older ones (which is why I chose that Harry would return for it). As usual, please let me know what you think and if you have any suggestions. I don't mind rewriting this chapter depending on your feedback, and hopefully, I'll be better by the next chapter.
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If you want to support me check out my patréon at https://www.patréon.com/athassprkr
I tend to upload drafts of early chapters on there to get people's opinions of them so you can read up to 20 chapters ahead as a bonus.
Thank you guys for your support in these hard times.
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