Chapter 157: Dogs and Slumber (1/2)
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The link is also in the synopsis.
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”Ladies, gentlemen, and interesting miscellanea — beloved friends and tolerated acquaintance,” he said and took a pause as a big smile appeared on his face, ”Welcome. .. to the Tri-wizard Tournament — first task: Dancing with Dragons.”
The second he finished, the students in the stands shattered the stunning silence, and if there was a roof over the stadium, the cheers of awes and excitement would've blown it off. The seven smoke rings, falling from the sky without dying, the fiery entry was already broke every expectation they had set for today.
'Holy shit, that is a lot of eyes,' thought Quinn as he turned on his feet to look at the entire stadium, roaming his eyes over all the excited and exhilarated people sitting in the stands. This was the first time he had this many eyes on him.
'Potato heads and nudes, was it?' considered Quinn before scrapping the idea; it wasn't his style.
”Most of you might know me from the AID services in Hogwarts — diligently helping people since 1991,” announced Quinn, his amplified voice reaching far and wide. ”But those who don't know me, I will introduce myself to you all: I'm Quinn West, a fifth-year student at Hogwarts — and today, on the exciting event of the Tri-wizard tournament's first, I will be your host for the festivities — and let me assure you something, the things we will see today will be all but boring or dull. They will be as colorful as the smokeworks in the sky.”
From the corner of his eyes, Quinn noticed someone, and that cued him to continue speaking.
”Mr. Ludovic 'Ludo' Bagman,” said Quinn pointing at Bagman entering the judge's box, ”celebrated Quidditch athlete and the currently the decorated Head of the Department of Magical Games and Sports. I would like everyone to give him a big round of applause.”
Quinn's words were heeded to the full without any prompting as the waves upon clapping serenaded the recently debt-free Ludo Bagman. The man had thought about silently entering the judge's box and sit himself down without arousing any attention, much less suspicion. The sudden spotlight made him freeze at the sheer suddenness, and he could only wave his hand with a stiff smile on his face.
”Mr. Bagman was supposed to be your host today,” announced Quinn growing the audiences' anticipation, ”but then he graciously handed the role to me, a student. So, here I'm standing in front of you all, about to kick this event off.”
He deliberately kept out the part where he had paid Bagman's debt and kept the goblins from coming after Bagman's head, and Quinn didn't know Bagman enough to give some credit.
The three headmasters/headmistress, Barty Crouch Sr., and the Hogwarts teachers looked at Bagman, wondering why he would pass on his hosting job to a student with varying feelings and judgmental thoughts.
Quinn was about to continue when a loud voice from the stands spoke before him. ”Did you say dragons?!”
He turned towards the direction of the voice and beamed in answer, ”Yes, Astoria, I did say dragons.” Her question and Quinn's answer gathered many eyes on the young Astoria Greengrass, who flushed a faint red at the sudden attention.
”The theme of the Tri-wizard tournament's first task is Dancing with Dragons,” continued Quinn, ”our four brave champions will be going head-to-head with the mighty dragons in showdowns of their life.”
He raised his fake wand over his head, and a shimmering golden light projected out of the wand tip. In the air above him, golden light began to twist, turn, bend and shift into the shape of an ornate egg with beautiful runic patterns etched on the surface.
”This the goal of our champions,” all eyes gathered over the gently rotating egg, ”a golden egg.”
The holographic golden egg shimmered once before it began shrinking down and, at the same time, descend down. By the time it reached the ground, the giant magical hologram had shrunk down to the size of an ostrich egg.
”But this golden egg is no ordinary.. . er, golden egg,” said Quinn getting him a round of chuckles. A graceful wave of his fake wand made standard dragon eggs around the golden egg, and now all rested inside a nest, ”this golden egg will be placed in the nest of a mother dragon.”
”All dragons that you'll see today are mother dragons who have laid eggs are currently in the incubation period.” He pointed at the golden egg, ”Four such golden eggs were secretly placed among the mothers' nests so that the mothers would treat it as their own egg. And with time through the great work of the dragon handlers from the Romanian Dragon Sanctuary, the golden egg is now treated as a real one.”
Then Quinn raised his arms wide, and his fake wand tip flashed a brief red.
What followed was a monstrosity with dark, rough scales, ridges along its back, and a tail tipped with an arrow-shaped spike faze out of the stony ground beneath Quinn's feet. The holographic figure flapped its wild wings and flew up into the sky.
”Dance with the Dragons,” repeated Quinn as he moved away from the egg hologram. He stared at his illusion replication of a Hebridean Black dragon that circled the sky above the stadium.
”Four different breeds of dragons, one for each champion,” grinned Quinn, but none were looking at him. All eyes were fixed on the black dragon flying in the sky.
The dragon turned its brilliant purple eyes towards the nest of eggs, and immediately, with a mighty flap of its wings, it descended towards the ground at neck-breaking speeds, but just before it reached the base, it stopped itself with an all-powerful flap before letting go and landing on the stony ground with a loud thump.
The realistic dragon hologram crawled towards the egg nest with agility, not suiting a creature of its size, but not one person doubted that this wasn't its actual speed.
”The mother dragon will protect its unborn children,” notified Quinn, and as he did that, the Hebridean Black raised its head towards Quinn, and the purple reptilian eyes glowed maliciously.
There were gasps and shouts of warning when they saw the dragon open its maw — inside, they saw a burning blue — what followed was a forceful jet of violet flames hurled towards Quinn. In an instant, amidst screams and cries, Quinn was engulfed in the roaring flames as the dragon mercilessly breathed fire.
The flaming jet lasted for a solid five seconds before it stopped, and many expected to see a burnt body of Quinn West, but as the fire cleared, he stood there unfazed.
They turned their eyes away from Quinn towards the dragon just to see its body gradually disappearing into golden floating glitter along with the egg nest. Those who had stood up sat down with a thump — the illusion had been so real that they, in the moment, had forgotten that the dragon wasn't real and just a magical fabrication.
”Dragons can breathe fire, have great physical strength, and have a hide that is resistant to magic,” listed Quinn as he moved back to the centre, ”today, our champions will face these creatures akin to the gladiators of the yore.”
He once again roamed his eyes over the stadium and declared,
”Let the games begin!”
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- (Scene Break) -
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Quinn climbed into the judging panel and greeted everyone there with a smile.
”Mr. West, I wasn't expecting another surprise from you today,” said Dumbledore with his patent smile on his face.
”Mr. Bagman was generous enough to bestow such an important task on to me, so when he offered, I accepted,” spoke Quinn, glancing at Bagman, who just smiled. ”It was an excellent opportunity to see if I can make a career in the announcer business. I have got a pretty good handle on Quidditch commentary, and this seemed to be perfect for trying out some diversification.”
Flitwick and a few Hogwarts laughed, and even McGonagall had a smile on her face from Quinn's words.
”It does seem to be an exciting career line, Mr. West,” chuckled Dumbledore, ”if every show and event was like this, I'm sure you would be booked all year long.”
”That's the dream, headmaster,” grinned Quinn.
”Mr. West, if you would start,” asked Barty Sr. from his chair.
”Of course, of course, let's get the festivities started,” nodded Quinn and raised his fake wand; its tip glowed blue, and that was the signal as a dragon handler came into the arena with an egg nest levitating behind him. He placed it in the centre and nodded to Quinn before nodding towards a gate in the arena guarded by a barred-iron gate.
The moment the handler exited, the gate was pulled up, and from inside, came charging out a Swedish Short-Snout; the magical beast wildly whipped her head searching for her eggs to notice the nest nearby. Jets of blue flames issued out of her nostrils as she half-jumped, half-flew to her eggs, cradling them under her protection.
”The Swedish Short-Snout is an attractive silvery-blue dragon whose skin is sought after for the manufacture of protective gloves and shields. The flame that issues from its nostrils is a brilliant blue and can reduce timber and bone to ash in a matter of seconds. The Short-Snout has fewer human killings to its name than most dragons, though as it prefers to live in wild and uninhabited mountainous areas, this is not much to its credit.”
Quinn announced to the spectators before taking out a whistle from his pocket to blow in it, for it to emit a shrill sound.
A few seconds later, a green-looking Cedric Diggory entered the stony arena. The first champion was sweating, and even before, he had somewhat of a labored breath from the stressful thoughts.
”Give it up for the Hogwarts champion, Cedric Diggory,” said Quinn, ”let's see how our first champion struggles against the Swedish Short-Snout.”
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In the arena, Cedric took out his wand and held it ready for defense. He didn't know which of his movements could trigger the giant creature in front of him.
He looked around the arena and spotted loose rocks lying across the field. 'Three.. . seven.. . fifteen,' Cedric continued to count, 'this many will be enough.. . at least I hope they are enough.'
Cedric then finally looked over at the dragon, and for a time that seemed to be an eternity and a single second, he took every feature of the dragon in. When he found that he was going to face a dragon, Cedric wasn't thrilled about it, and even though Cedric was glad to obtain the information in advance, there wasn't much he could do about it.
Through many sleepless nights, Cedric was able to come out with one strategy.
'I need to distract it.'
Cedric took in a deep breath to calm himself, but his composure went back into nervousness when he saw the Short-Snout's blue flames.
'I can do it, I can do it.' Cedric repeated in his mind before raising his wand and pointing it towards a rock distant from him. A faint cream spell-light zapped towards the rock, and with a crunching noise, the stone transformed into a bullmastiff dog.