Harry Potter and the Potter Grimoire

Chapter 8: First Levels of Aftermath

"Coronatio. Protego." Two words cut through the silence after the explosion. The crowd began to cheer wildly, and Albus felt a tear fall. He never looked away from Harry as he started to walk toward the two dragons. His eyes were fixated on the half mask that sat on Harry's face.

Covering exactly half his face, the mask was an ivory white. Green vapor, that Albus recognized as magic itself, leaked from the broken edges and the single eye hole. "My dear boy... what did you do?" He watched in silence as with a roar that had a secondary tone under it, Harry attacked.

Everything burned. Agony darted through his legs as he took a step, and his vision swam. The two dragons roared in defiance, even as hot blood poured from the Horntail's wounds, and the scales of the Vilispa cooled. Harry flicked his wand twice, and two massive spires of earth speared into the Horntail. As it was pinned by the spires that skewered it, Harry started blasting it with explosion curses, banishing charms, and Drax spells formed from the very air.

"Good lord! I'm not sure what I am seeing Clyde! Harry Potter has a half mask on his face, and is blasting the horntail into submission! There has to be a hundred spells coming from his wand!" Ludo's voice carried the action to the rest of the world.

The burning intensified as the magic erupted from Harry's wand. Still, even as his arms burned, and he stopped feeling his feet, he blasted magic forward. Finally, the Horntail fell to the onslaught. With a wail, an exploding curse slammed into her eye. With a shattering finality, the Horntail died.

The Vilispa watched as the Horntail died. It instinctually knew that it couldn't move until its scales cooled and when the onslaught of exploding curses and Drax spells fell upon it, it hunkered down, preparing itself. Exploding curses bounced of its hide, drax spells formed of blasts of sharpened wind cut into the scales, and the Vilispa waited as it slowly built up its toxic breath.

Harry stopped his advance and magical assault. With a flick up of his wand, a dull spire of earth forced the Vilispa's head up, just as it blasted out toxic gas. Working quickly, Harry transfigured the spire into a collar for the dragon, keeping it immobile. He summoned one of Krum's knives, still cursed and enlarged it so the blade was as thick as the dragon's neck. Levitating it above the Vilispa's neck, just below the Task's collar, Harry let it fall.

The audience was horrified by the scream from the dragon when the knife failed to cut through it's spine on the first try. The audience was shocked when Harry lifted the enlarged knife again, and drove it down once more. The Vilispa ceased its struggling as its head detached from the body. The crowd roared as the blood of the dragon showered the arena.

Harry could barely see. His vision swam, and when it was steady, there were flashes of red. Breathing was hard, his chest burned. He stumbled toward the Vilispa, and dragged his disk out of his pocket. He fumbled as it slipped into place and the collar fell off the stump of the dragon's neck. He suddenly couldn't feel his fingers of his left hand. He raised his wand to the exit that the Vilispa entered from, and Summoned the wall of Arena. By the time he landed outside the door, his mask had shattered, and he knew no more.

Albus fired a patronus to Poppy. If he was right about what he just saw, Harry needed help now. In the mean-time, he watched as Fleur woke up and gasped in horror at what she saw.

"Moi Dieu." The whispered swearing was picked up by the wind, and every person in the arena heard it. Fleur slowly stood and started to stagger toward the corpse of the Horntail. Her vision, blurry from slamming face first into a dragon, saw only the collar around the throat of the dragon. Only when she staggered out of the arena, the only champion to do so under her own power, did the crowd start to cheer again.

Madam Poppy Pomfrey had seen it all. She was a mediwitch-in-training when Grindlewald's war ended. She was fully trained and on staff at Hogwarts when Voldemort declared war. But as she cast at Harry Potter's body with one hand and poured potions down his throat with the other, she was shocked.