Dragons? That’s not so bad
Harry decided he needed to send Sirius another letter. Pronto. So he nabbed a parchment from his back, a quill, and some ink, before starting to write.
Dear Sirius,
Do you know of someone in your family called Alphard Black? The teaching assistant for our DADA teacher, Skull, mentioned something about a newspaper article written by Rita Skeeter called ‘the treacherous deeds of the son of Alphard Black’. Skull also said something about being under a curse. I was wondering if you knew anything. That’s all.
Well wishes, Harry.
Harry went to the Owlery to send his letter. This time, he chose Hedwig again. He stroked her feathers gently and she gave him the stink eye.
”Sorry, sorry,” he apologised as he tied the letter to her leg. She gave him a more painful nip on the ear than usual, before fluffing her feathers and taking off.
Harry watched her go silently, then made his way out of the Owlery.
A few days later...
”Right!” Skull said far too cheerfully for anything to be good. “Moody had some stuff to do, so he had me take over! A upper class was doing whatever and thought using their free period of studying would be a good time for paper aeroplanes and doodling and hexes, so they will be joining us in our training session!”
Harry was torn in thirds, as were the rest of the class. Part of them felt sorry for the upperclassman, another part felt a sadistic glee in finding out others would be suffering with them, and the final part just felt horror on having Skull as a teacher again.
”To the Quidditch pit!” Skull yelled loudly.
People began to slowly troop towards the pitch, knowing full well if they tried to run, Skull would send Oodako and Leon after them. They spoke from experience.
At the pitch, they saw Cedric Diggory’s class waiting for them with Reborn. Skull grinned and bounced forward.
”Right! Partner up! First are the warm ups! 50 sit ups!”
Everyone scrambled for partners, and Harry found himself somehow paired with Cedric. They nodded at each other and Cedric got down on the ground, Harry sat on his feet. Reborn began to count as Skull walked around, looking for laggers.
”One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven-”
”You’re lagging!” Skull yelled, pointing at Goyle. “Everyone starts again from one!”
There was a collective groan and everyone glared at Goyle. Reborn started counting again.
”One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten. Eleven...”
Afterwards, they were forced to run around the pit as Skull set up a parkour.
SWITCHING POVS...
”...vat are they doing?” Krum asked a passerby Hogwarts students as he watched the students run.
”Hm? What?” the student asked, looking in the direction he was looking at. A flicker of pity passed over the students face. “Ah,” he said. “Lessons with Skull and Reborn.”
”Those... are lessons?” Krum asked.
”Yup. But we students call it Hell. Reborn and Skull say that we rely too much on magic, on not enough on our physical strength so... yea. That happened.”
SWITCHING POVS...
”If it’s so easy,” a student grumbled as Skull yelled at them again for not being fast enough on the parkour, “why don’t you go ahead and do it, Professor?”
There was silence, and the student looked up, then realised everyone was looking at him. It seemed Skull had overheard him. Skull blinked.
”Actually, good idea,” he said. “Alright. I’ll go, and then Reborn will go. A student can man the watch, so you can’t say we cheated.”
Jaws dropped. They hadn’t actually meant that... but it would be pretty good to see the teacher fail for once. Skull lined up at the starting line, handing a student the stopwatch. That student happened to be Hermione, Who’s thankfully knew how to use a stopwatch.
Skull did a few warm ups and jogged lightly on the spot. Oodako held up his motorcycle helmet and Skull took it with a smile. He put it on and have Hermione a nod.
”Ready,” she said, her voice quivering a little. “Set... GO!”
Skull took off at a sprint. While Harry was no genius in physics, he was pretty sure people couldn’t accelerate like that instantly. So either Skull was using magic, or he was simply inhuman.
Skull leapt over the fence, under and over the falling barrels, hopped through the trapdoors leading to the mud pit in a breeze and through the tires and whizzed through the monkey bars easily. He slid beneath the paintballs and when they were too low to dodge, he weaved through them like it was the easiest thing to do.
Then he came to a stop in front of the students, and Hermione belatedly paused the timer.... which was still a clear eight seconds ahead of anyone else. Skull took of his helmet, and Harry notes dimly that the teacher was barely even winded.
”Right!” he said, and pushed Reborn to the starting line. “Your turn Ren~”
Hermione was once again the timer. “Go!”
This time, they could barely even see Reborn. Jaws dropped, and the entire parkour was finished in 25 seconds. (It was a rather long parkour). The fastest any student had gotten was 1 minutes and 6 seconds. Skull had gotten 56 seconds. (Adding on the time Hermione had missed). And yet, Reborn had been much, much faster. But...
”Do you think Fon could have don’t it faster?” Skull asked Reborn, frowning.
”Possibly,” Reborn answered, smoothing out the nonexistent creases in his suit.
What kind of monster friends do these guys have?! many people wondered.
Sometime that night... or is is it even later...?
”Sirius!” Harry said, breaking into a grin. “How’re you doing? Is... something wrong?”
Sirius looked serious. No pun intended. He pursed his lips, and sighed.
”It doesn’t matter for now. How are you?”
”I’m...” Harry couldn’t bring himself to say he was fine. And then, before he could stop himself, he was spilling about everything. “...and now Hagrid’s just shown me what’s coming in the first task, and it’s dragons, Sirius, I’m a goner.”
”Dragons we can deal with,” Sirius said in amusement. “However, I have to warn you about something.”
”What is it? And how’s fireplace are you using?”
”My place. What, thought I had nowhere to go? Anyway, that’s not important. That person who put your name in the fireplace, the one that teacher, Reborn, saw. I think it might have been Karkaroff, he was a Death Eater, you know.”
Harry thought about this, but then shook his head slowly.
”No... I don’t think so. Judging by what I know of Reborn, he isn’t someone who’ll put mere kids in danger. Take what he did for Hermione for example. He might be tough while training, but... he and Skull are pretty nice otherwise. I think Reborn would have said something if the person even remotely resembled Karkaroff.”
Sirius nodded, frowning.
”Which brings us to our second topic. Alphard. He was my favourite uncle. Got himself blasted off the family tree way back when I was a kid.”
Sirius hesitated, and Harry waited for him to continue. “He had a son, my cousin, called Rigel. He was in my year at Hogwarts. A few things... happened when we were in fifth year. People were scared, Harry, and they started to point fingers. In our sixth year, Rigel had a hard time. No one believed him when he said he didn’t do all those things they accused him of.”
Sirius saw Harry’s face and elaborated. “Murder. Rape. Practising the Dark Arts. Well, no one except our little group and Alphard and a handful of others. But, near the end of seventh year, Alphard was murdered. All signs pointed to Rigel being the murderer. Of course, we didn’t believe it. He was framed, we were sure of it. But see, the Wizengamot take family murder and stuff pretty seriously. They sentenced him to Azkaban. See though, the thing is, Rigel... while at first, he was quiet, shy and just... there, never saying anything, once he got fired up, he really got fired up.
”He made all these complaints, found hidden flaws where trained wizards couldn’t find them in the scene of crime. Had an alibis that no one bothered to look at. But then, one day, he just- disappeared. There was a wild goose chase over the country, where it was said he’d killed and raped even more people. We didn’t believe them. A bounty was pit up. The money started mounting. And then... his body turned up. In a lake. Covered in knife wounds and bullet holes.”
Sirius heaved a gasp of breath, and Harry realised his godfather was crying. “Rigel... Rigel was just... dead. That goddamn adrenaline junkie of an idiot was dead. He was more a brother to me than Regulus ever was. Skeeter didn’t make things any better during his trials. But what that’s got to do with your teacher, I haven’t a clue.”
There was silence for a few seconds, which Sirius soon broke, muttering something about, ‘he never liked silence’. Then Harry heard footsteps coming down the stairs behind him.
”Go!” he hissed at Sirius. “Go! There’s someone coming!”
Monday Morning...
”The first task is dragons.”
”What?” Cedric asked, looking confused.
”Dragons,” Harry said hurriedly. “They’ve got four, one for each of us, and we’ve got to get past them.”
”Are you sure?” Cedric asked in spa hushed voice.
”Dead sure, I’ve seen them,” Harry replied.
”But... how did you find out? We’re not supposed to know...”
”Never mind that,” Harry said hastily. “But I’m not the only one who knows. Fleur And Krum will know by now too. Maxime and Karkaroff both saw too.”
Cedric looked faintly suspicious.
”Why are you telling me?” he asked, and Harry blinked.
”Well, it’s just... fair, isn’t it?” he asked Cedric. “We all know now, we’re on even footing.”
Cedric looked at him for a moment, and then sighed.
”Blimey,” he said in a whisper. “Dragons...”
”Well,” Harry said absently. “After going through lessons with Skull and Reborn, I don’t think I’m so scared anymore.”
Cedric laughed at that.
”Yea, that’s true. Those two are worse than dragons.”
Cedric nodded and the two parted quickly.
”That was a decent thing for you to do,” a voice said behind him.
Harry yelped and whirled around. Skull was there with his pet- familiar, Harry corrected himself -octopus called Oodako.
”P-Professor!” he stammered. “I- I didn’t-”
”Its fine,” Skull hummed. “I really don’t care what happens. So, found a way to get past the dragon yet?”
”N... no,” Harry admitted.
Skull hummed again, and Harry thought he saw someone moving out of the corner of his eye that looked suspiciously like Moody, but when he turned to check, there was no one there.
”Well, a good thing to always keep in mind is to stick with what you’re good at,” Skull said. “That’s what I always do, anyway.”
Harry looked at him curiously and said, “But... I haven’t got any strengths.”
”Nonsense!” Skull said. “I know a kid who was clumsy, no-good, and rather stupid at everything. Now look at him! He’s popular, has rather good grades, and is like, the boss!”
”...Quidditch,” Harry said dully. “That’s it, really.”
”Mhm. And you’re pretty good, apparently. McGonagall boasts a lot.”
”Yeah, but... I’m not allowed a broom. Just my wand...”
”Eh, true,” Skull said. “Well, what can you do with your wand then?”
”...cast spells...”
”Mhm. Come on, it’s not that hard to figure out. What do muggles think of magic? A flick of a stick and bam! You got what you need.”
Harry thought. Then it struck him. He was best at flying. He needed to pass the dragon in the air. What he needed was his Firebolt to do that. And for his Firebolt-”
Skull grinned, and said, “Well, looks like you got it.” He started to walk away.
”Wait! Professor! Why are you helping me...?”
”...I owe someone a favour. They asked me to keep you safe. I agreed. I’m not someone who breaks promises, kiddo.”
”Then... do you know someone called Rigel Black?”
Skull stiffened, and looked at Harry over his shoulder.
”...I’d stop looking for that person if I was you. He’s long dead and gone, kid.”
Then the strange man was gone, and Harry needed to go find Hermione. Fast.