Personal Growth
A week after his first meeting with Snape, Harry slid into place across from Draco at the Slytherin table for lunch. Ever since Harry's first meeting the pervy git had approached Harry at least once a day trying to force him to go see Dumbledore. Harry while easily able to get away from the man was getting tired of it, especially when he felt people trying to track him to where he had been sleeping. Knowing better than to trust either Dumbles or Snape, Harry had changed locations at every mealtime sitting with different students at all four tables so they would be unable to determine a pattern of his actions and try to spike his food with Potions or whatnot. Not that he was worried about being enchanted by potion or spell having long since found out that unless he willing took something much like the waters from the Fountain of Youth that Humphry had given him before he returned to this realm.
"What's up Harry?" Draco asked having come to admire the boy, having heard tales about his magical powers in every class the Boy-Who-Lived audited.
"I need to get in touch with your dad," Harry said shocking him.
"Um, okay. Why?" Draco asked.
"Well according to my Godfather his brother-in-law is one of the top legal minds in this country," Harry explained.
"I think you mean cousin, my father is married to his cousin not his brother," Draco said looking quickly from side to side to make sure Pansy and her bullying friends were around to hear what Harry had said.
"Ah my mistake," Harry said before shocking Draco as he moved his mouth with but making not a sound. A moment later as if Harry was speaking right into his ear Harry's voice said, "If you wish to keep your true parentage a secret I shall do so, but I would like to get in touch with your dad so that he can write up an iron-clad restraining order against your Headmaster and Professor Snape,"
Draco was about to respond in shock but Harry lifted a hand and tapped a finger before nodding at the blonde. "Why would you want that?" Draco asked surprised when he did not hear his own voice.
"Well, let's see," Harry said as he started to count off on his fingers. "I have bank records that showed Dumbles trying to steal money from my accounts as well as trying and failing to claim my family seats in the Wizengamot. Numerous attempts to make off with artifacts that belong to my lines such as the Sword of Gyrffindor, Rowena Ravenclaws's Tome of Students which she used to keep track of all vital information about the students at Hogwarts. The man also tried and failed, to place blocks on my magic and some of my abilities so I really don't want to have a one-on-one meeting with him. Not that he can force me to anyway considering I am not a student at this school. As for Snape, he is playing both sides against the middle as he appears to be working for Dumbles, but I know from a fact that he is what you guys call a Death Eater," Harry said still only speaking to Draco. Draco who was amazed at the magic tried to make it look like nothing was going on had taken a drink only to spit it out when he learned of Snape's loyalties. Harry let the spell slide so Draco could be heard as he came up with an excuse for spitting out his drink, Draco was amazed thinking of all the times Snape had come to his house growing up making him wonder if the man had come to see his father or Narcissa.
"Snape also had a thing for my mom and not in a good way," Harry continued once he recast the spell between them.
"What do you mean?" Draco asked.
"Well, he pretended to be my mom's friend but would do creepy things like sniff her chair once she left the room, jerk off to photos of her, gave her cookies in which he put his own hair into, and even tried to brew love potions for her, but thankfully by the time he had the necessary skill to pull it off she no longer saw him as a friend," Harry explained.
"That is just sickening," Draco said deciding that his "Godfather" must have been at Malfoy Manor to see Narcissa with actions like that. The same type of actions Blaise and Theo had informed him that Pansy had done to him ending his friendship with the girl. "The thing is though even if you have good reasons to put them in place and my father would most likely help you, Narcissa would never allow it."
"Than don't tell her about it," Harry said.
"That is easy for you to say she has made sure that any thought of a Death Eater in my family landed in my father's lap rather than on her," Draco groused angrily stabbing a bit of turkey off his plate.
"Inform him to head to Grimmauld Place and asked for Tony, Sirius has been trying to get in contact with him for a while to find out about Regulus. Once there I am sure Sirius and Remus can help him, if not they have an ally that will do the trick," Harry said with a secret smile not sharing that if his Godfather and Magical Guardian could not do it he would.
"Fine, I shall write to him in our code and pass on the message. Though I don't expect you will hear back from him for maybe a week or two," Draco said.
"As long as it gets started I just want the pair to realize they have no actual power over me and I will fight them legally if I have to as their first warning," Harry said as he finally began to eat his meal.
Just like his actions at mealtime Harry also would visit the classes at Hogwarts randomly, except for Potions. He would join not only random classes but random grades as well from the First-Years to seeing how Hogwarts began to teach young Magicals, all the way up to the Seventh-Years classes to see what level the students had in the last year at Hogwarts. In both cases, Harry was utterly disappointed at Hogwarts for Hogwarts was so far behind all the other Magical Schools in this realm it was not even funny anymore. He could see why the majority of students from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang had both decided to do self-study in either the Hogwarts library or their Schools' arks. The class that finally went over the line leading him to join in self-study was a Seventh-Year Transfiguration class. He was not the only visiting student to audit the class as Fleur was well. As Harry had joined a Seventh-Year Transfiguration class before the instructor did not bat an eye as he sat next to Fleur for the lesson. "Alright everybody we have reached the point which you have all been looking forward to," Professor McGonagall said giving the Ravenclaw/Hufflepuff class a tight-lipped smile. Harry and Fleur were the only two that did not seem to know what she was talking about as the Hogwart students all smiled up at the Scottish woman. "I hope you have all found the time to do some meditations for we are moving on to Animagus transformation," she said this bit of information lead Harry and Fleur to share a look. Harry knew that at most Magical Schools and Animagus form was usually taught in a Magicals' First or Second Year, while Harry himself had always been able to change his form due to his numerous Magical talents.
The pair of them sat back and watched how Hogwarts taught the subject which only seemed to focus on one single method, though since it was a Transfiguration Class it would be strange if they used the Animagus Inducer Potion method to change. Still, there were other ways to change such as tapping into one Magic by using a Blood Ritual, though based on the British declaring all but the practice of Blood Adoption being illegal it made some sense. All the instruction McGonagall gave the class was to clear their mind and think of an animal they wished to become which was the smallest bit of info she could give them all and still have it constitute a lesson. Rolling his eyes as he sees some of the students just close their eyes and mutter to themselves random animals Harry reaches into his pocket and takes out a nail file and works on his nails finding the lesson just too dumb for him. "Mr. Potter are we boring you?" McGonagall's voice calls out breaking the silence.
"A little bit yes," he said without even looking up, "and it is actually Lord Potter since I was accepted as a Champion the Goblet of Fire saw me as an adult letting me fully claim my titles,"
"Well maybe you would not be so bored if you attended the classes of students your own age rather than those three years older than you," she shot back without apologizing for her slight to his honor.
"Why it is not like this lesson is hard," he said making a show of holding back a yawn.
"If you say so Mr. Potter then maybe you will like to give all of us a demonstration of the Animagus Transformation," McGonagall said.
"Okay," Harry said tossing the nail file into the air and catching it in one of his sleeves as he stood up and walked to the front of the room. With no hesitation at all, he cracked his knuckles before he transformed into a cat, there was some gasp not only at how easily he had pulled it off but one of the Ravenclaw students muttered something about the form looking just like McGonagall's cat form was. "See not that hard," Harry said just as easily changing back and returned to his seat and taking out his nail file again. McGonagall was so flabbergasted by his display she asked if anyone else wanted to show off their transformation even though the Hogwarts students had only been at it for less than ten minutes. With a smile of her own Fleur sweep up to the front of the room and just as easily as Harry had done transformed into her Animagus, in her case a platypus. Seeing both Harry and Fleur so easily change the Hogwarts students tried to do it one after another but only one of them was able to pull off the change as a Hufflepuff girl transformed into a swan.
It was how little the staff, with maybe the exceptions of Flitwick, Vector, and Bagsheada, were at teaching their students and following proper protocol that Harry and Fleur both decided to join the rest of the visiting students in self-study as the last holdouts of going to Hogwarts classes. For a while, Harry joined the visiting students who did their self-study in the library for a while but soon had to change places as Snape started to show up and tried to force Harry to Dumbledor's office. When Harry refused Snape even enlisted the Hogwarts librarian to help him making the place useless for his self-study. As Harry still was not sure if Realm Walking would void the contract he made with the Goblet of Fire was reduced to going to a random classroom to meditate on some of his past teachers from across this world and the other realms as he prepared for the First Task and only left it for meals.
One week before the First Task was to take place Harry received a message via Tony which contained the news that Sirius using his head of the Black Family had taken Lucius in to protect him from Narcissa as he banished the woman from the Black Line. Tony also passed on the two Magical Restraining orders against Snape and Dumbledore making them unable to talk to him about anything other than schoolwork, but only if he was a student at Hogwarts, and since he was just visiting the school the pair would be unable to interact with him at all. Harry after receiving them inside the hidden room within the castle gave a small cheer seeing by a notation on both documents that they had already been filed with the British Ministry of Magic, but also the ICW. Harry had done it like this for he did not fully trust the British Ministry to reign Dumbles in knowing from both Sirius and Remus that the old bastard had a lot of influence within the British Ministry. After getting the message from Tony, Harry once more sat with Draco to see if the blonde Slytherin boy had learned that his father and he were now protected. As soon as he sat down Harry saw that Draco knew, for the other boy had a giant smile on his face, unlike his normal somewhat sour expression. Harry did not even have to use a spell to have another silent conversation with him as Draco just gave him a deep bow of his head with his right hand closed in a fist moving to cover his heart and left hand held parallel to his chest palm open in an old Pureblood sign of owning someone a Life Debt, not that Harry would ever call on that dept. Giving Draco a nod in return Viktor sat down and spoke in rapid Bulgarian telling Harry what the First Task was. Viktor seemed to be worried as he told Harry about Headmaster Karkaroff had shared with him just that morning that they would be facing off against dragons.
Harry was not that worried for he knew that some of his old teachers, such as Gandalf and Cid would suggest fighting and possibly killing the dragon. But thanks to some training Harry had in a realm that was timewise further back than this one he had trained for a summer on how to ride and become friends with dragons thanks to a man with the odd name of Hiccup and his dragon partner Toothless. Harry had gotten more out of it than the others who attended the classes with the pair due to his All-Speak ability he was able to get information from Toothless himself. Before he had changed realms Toothless had given him a special phrase that would identify him as a Dragon-Friend. Harry had been unsure if the phrase would work in other realms until he was working for Humphrey and had met a girl named Becka who was half-dragon and confirmed that even though the phrase had been given to him in a different realm it still worked there.
On the day of the task, Harry joined the other Champions and Ludo Bagman inside a tent where it would be decided the order they faced the dragons as well as which Dragons they faced. As they reached into the bag to pull out a dragon statue Bagman explained that their task was to collect a golden egg from their dragon which Harry read as them having to face off against nesting dragons which only excited him. Due to Harry being the youngest of the group, as far as anyone in that realm knew, he had to pick his last as he pulled out a small dragon with a number four around its neck and was told by Bagman that the dragon he would face was a Hungarian Horntail. As Bagman left the tent Marcus offered some sympathy to Harry having known a little bit about the Hungarian Horntail as he had researched for the task. Harry was still not worried about it shocking Marcus while making Flue and Viktor laugh as he shared he thought the dragon looked really cute. As the other worried about the coming task Harry just sat in the middle of the tent and began to meditate. He might have gone a little too far in his meditations as Viktor and Fleur gasps seeing him begin to float off the ground and spin circles in the air both from left to right but also up and down with not even the cannon starting the Slytherin male's attempt seeming to disturb him. In fact, he only broke his meditation as he was called to face off against his dragon.
As he stepped into the arena that had been set up for the Champions to face the dragons, Harry saw that Hungarian Horntails must have the male watch the eggs as a female hunted for he was facing a large male member of the species. Harry did not flinch or even pull out his wand as he cleared his throat and began to speak the phrase Toothless had taught him. "Noble ruler of the sky I come before you and announce myself Harry son of Potter and ask for a parley," Harry said in the language of dragons having stated ruler of the sky rather than another element seeing the Hungarian Horntail had wings on its back. By the look of it, the phrase of a Dragon-Friend worked in this realm as well as the dragon gave a small nod before opening its mouth to speak the return phrase. But as the dragon's mouth was fully open Harry was able to detect a wave of magic being shot right down its throat from outside the designated arena. As the wave of magic stopped the dragon opened and closes its mouth a couple of times as if it was chewing on the magic before it let out an ear-splitting roar.
Whatever magic had been cast on the dragon seemed to turn it feral for even though it roared no words came out as the Horntail's neck shoots out and snaps at him. Harry just lifts an eyebrow at it. Fine, if someone wanted to interfere so they could see a show he would give them something they would not forget. Still not reaching for his wand Harry moves his arms through a ritual as he cast a spell on himself. There was some gasp as Harry began to grow in size as in less than ten seconds he was as large as the Horntail who had stopped snapping at him as even it was astonished at what it was witnessing. Harry only stopped his growth spell when he was two heads taller than the Horntail as he used another spell to increase his strength so he could easily lift the Nesting Father off the nest and collect the Golden Egg. Before he let go of the dragon Harry also used a spell to cleanse whatever had turned the Horntail feral in the first place before apologizing to it as he shrunk to his normal size. Bagman seemed to be going insane as he called out Harry collecting the egg using, what to him., was strange and unknown magic. Harry just shrugged as he turned his back and headed to Champions' tent not even caring what his points were as he hoped the Second Task would prove more of a challenge.