章 12: Plans and more plans
"Ugh," Harry woke up with a groan.
"Finally awake are you?" came a sarcastic voice from above him.
"Who? Oh, Salazar is that you?" he mumbled while rubbing his eyes.
"Yesss, now get up before I banish another chair at your idiotic head," he stated, slowly clenching and unclenching his fists.
Of course, Harry couldn't see the gesture from his position.
'He sure sounds angry huh? Now, what is this about chairs?'
With that thought, he slowly got up from the… floor.
Why was he on the floor and why were there broken furniture beside him?
"What happened…"
At that moment, his memory of the previous night started coming back in flashes, making him wince.
"Uh, sorry Salazar?" he tried.
He didn't waste any time taking out his wand and mumbling a few reparos towards the mess he caused in his catatonic state the night before.
'To be fair, Dumbledore can be really annoying,' Harry thought, barely managing to suppress summoning his previous day's anger.
He couldn't block out the gloom though…
"Try harming another book from my library and I'll show you who's sorry," Salazar snarked getting a blank look in response.
'Ah, that's right. The last thing I remember was sending a spell towards a bookshelf. That sure does explain a lot; Salazar is pretty fond of his library,' thought the boy who lived, feeling a tiny bit ashamed for his earlier outburst.
[BREAK]
Three weeks had passed since Harry became aware of the true ongoings on that Halloween night.
In the beginning, the news were weighing his mind very heavily, making him almost fall into depression. However, Salazar wouldn't have his heir mopping around while his gruesome end approached.
He explained to Harry that because his parents knew about the impending attack, they could have chosen to leave the country and withdraw from the war.
Instead, they chose to stay and fight. While that was admirable and all, they had left their son an orphan and to a terrible life filled with more hardships than one could count.
That way of thinking had managed to help Harry stop blaming himself for the death of his parents. Not fully, however, no. That day had come a few years later after the war finally ended…
Salazar then proceeded to fully start Harry's tutelage, beginning with lessons on occlumency.
While at first, they had both decided that Harry should continue his schooling normally, the news about the task, understandably changed things.
No one had seen Harry since that day, as Salazar and he had chosen to fully ignore everything going on at Hogwarts.
The founder had gone full teacher mode and taught Harry about every branch of magic he knew about. Albeit, he mostly taught him about the basics, forgoing the complex stuff as they did not have enough time. That was done so Harry would have a broader and better understanding of magic.
The rest of their time was mostly spent on charms, curses, and family magics, both of Slytherin and Peverell origin.
However, what surprised both of them the most, was Harry's occlumency progress.
"Your talent with the mind arts surpasses that of a natural born occlumens. It probably has something to go with subconsciously defending your mind from a dark lord's soul piece for so long," Salazar had said.
Harry was immensely pleased to hear that piece of news. While having a sound mind couldn't damage a grown dragon, his control over his emotional state had grown by leaps and bounds.
The fact that his mind also kept sharpening at an inhuman rate was not unwelcome.
"I'm not gonna be a monkey anymore!" he had exclaimed upon hearing the news.
Gone were the terrible mood swings and the stupidity that plagued him for all his life. That's what Harry hoped at least…
In his head, there was only peace now. And a soul piece of the worst dark lord of the 20th century.
While Harry didn't go to any lessons, that was not to say that he was cooped up all day in the chamber.
He went to the dragon camp every few days, hoping to catch a glimpse of the last dragon. He had no luck whatsoever towards that front though…
Naturally, he had long since researched the other dragons and together with Salazar concluded that the best dragon to face would be the Hungarian Horntail. The dragon had black scales, a spiked tail, and was lizard-like in appearance. It was also falsely considered to be one of the most dangerous dragon breeds.
If there was any fool in Hogwarts that believed that, they would get enlightened at the first task.
The Hungarian Horntail was the smallest one of the bunch, sitting at fifteen meters of length, and the least dangerous one.
During his night adventures, Harry also found out about the task's goal.
FLASHBACK
Harry was heading back to the castle when he stopped dead in his tracks; his ears picked on a most curious conversation.
"So what will the champions have to do?" asked a familiar voice from a nearby tent.
Slowly, making sure as to walk carefully, Harry closed in on the source of the voice.
While his cloak would hide him from everyone and anything, it didn't offer the same benefit to his immediate surroundings.
"Hasn't any told you yet?" fired back a befuddled voice.
"No… Don't tell me. Will they have to go one-on-one and slay the dragons?" asked the first man again excitedly.
By that time, Harry was standing at the tent's entrance and quickly identified the inquiring man.
It was the bloody minister of magic, Cornelius Fudge.
'Of course, the cocksucker would want that. I'm surprised that he didn't put a hand on planning the first task though.'
The man laughed whilst shaking his head. Appearance-wise, he was not unlike Fudge.
"Of course not Cornelius. I'm sure that'd be an epic sight to see, however, they'll simply have to survive for a quarter of an hour and cause as much damage to their respective dragon without killing it. Needless to say, they wouldn't be able to slay the dragons but we'll still say it as one of the task's requirements. We don't want any of the champions having any funny ideas and damaging our materials," the man revealed.
"Hmmm. How will the champions get assigned their dragons?" asked the minister, pleasing Harry.
That was a question he and Salazar had thought about but couldn't answer, not with any certainty.
"Ah, that's quite simple. We'll present them a small pouch, right before the task starts, from where they'll each pick up their dragon's transfigured, miniature form."
"I see, I see. Simple and fair. Let's have a toast for the success of the first task now," he said while grabbing a bottle that Harry would later learn to be firewhisky.
He had to thank occlumency for stopping him cursing the two pathetic men.
"What about Harry Potter? Has anyone heard about him since his absence at the Wand Weighing ceremony?" asked the unknown man.
Harry didn't care to listen to any gossip and left to inform Salazar about the luckily gotten and just discovered information. They had to revise their plans again.
PRESENT
Ash was coiled around Harry's neck while the teen was peacefully reading a potion journal on his favourite couch.
"Did you triple check the ingredients of the ritual? You'll be doing it tomorrow night," voiced an annoying voice, in Harry's opinion, disturbing his studying.
While not as magically significant as Yule, the next night's full moon would help boost the ritual's efficiency by a bit.
Harry closed the pleasant book and lazily stood up, looking at Salazar's portrait.
The boy standing in front of Salazar had not changed much in appearance since he had first met him. His demeanour and eyes though, couldn't be any different.
'Not boy. Man,' he corrected.
"I did even better, you old fossil. I've checked them five whole timesss," came Harry's steady hiss.
"Repeat our plan for me please," requested Salazar, unbothered by his heir's remark, prompting Harry to sigh before indulging the man's whims.
During his hours of research, Harry had found a few interesting things about the tri-wizard tournament. As one might expect, the duo would exploit everything they could.
'I'm sure Dumbledore had forgotten to mention that for the few minutes while competing, no law applies to the champions. I could kill the lemon-loving bastard himself and no one would be able to take any legal actions against me later. Heck, my account manager would probably be proud, ' he briefly considered.
"After I leave the chamber, I'll drink the whole vial of felix felicis I managed to buy by selling some of your basilisk's venom. I'll then head straight to the arena that was recently set up. With the potion working its wonders, I'll choose to be the first one to pick their dragon and get the Hungarian Horntail. Hopefully, by the time I go into the pit, the potion will be still working. I'll then drink the magical strengthening potions we made with the basilisk's venom and try damaging the dragon with the Slytherin spells you taught me in parseltongue while keeping safe. If all fails, I'll summon my firebolt and do my best to not become bacon or dragon treat for the remaining time," he said.
The plan was pretty solid.
Felix felicis was a miracle maker so the first part was going to succeed.
'Managing to find and buy one, was truly lucky. Hah, I made a pun… I doubt any of the others could get one. The liquid luck costs hundreds of thousands of galleons. Makes me appreciate Asmodeus senior's help from the other side,' Harry thought with some amusement.
Who knew that the slayed basilisk would help him survive another legendary magical creature in the future?
Then there were the potions he and Sal made, again with the older Asmodeus' help.
Salazar, in another display of his genius, managed to string a potion meant to substantially boost magical prowess for fifteen minutes, exactly as much as they needed, thus maximising its potential.
'The side effects sure do suck though… Magical coma for a week and poison potent enough to kill anyone without active phoenix tears inside their system. I don't even want to think back to how difficult it was to manage brewing the thing without the cauldron melting…'
"And the phoenix?" Salazar asked, feigning an unimpressed attitude.
"Assuming that I manage to get Fawkes to become my familiar before the task, I'll have him fly over the arena and do his best to keep me alive."
"You have two days," stated the monkey-ish man.
"I know Sal," he simply said.
Harry grabbed Asmodeus and tried putting him down, but the snake slithered off his hold and sneaked inside his clothes.
"Why are you taking me off?" he hissed, not bothering to hide his annoyance.
Being curled on Harry was comfortable…
"I'll go check the camp again, they ssshould have brought the last dragon by now," he hissed back.
"I'll just come with you then."
"Fine."
(Last edit: 16/07/2024)
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