NOVEL NEXT Chapter 29: Chapter 29: Quick!
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Aries had already felt the dragon fire and had no trouble bending it around, moving his hand and wand in sync, to throw it back into the melting rock.
A quick shrinking spell shortened and tightened the chain keeping the dragon in the stadium and it could not longer leap into the air to avoid its own dragonfire.
Though it did not matter. Stream after stream of dragon fire was bent back at the dragon's feet as it slowly sunk into the melting rock.
Aries sent a spell above its head causing an explosion like a massive bomb, forcing the dragon to cower lower into the molten quick sand.
Minutes passed but to Aries it felt like an eternity.
The heat of the dragon fire and the raging torrent of power that rushed through him made every second drag on until at last enough rock had melted.
"Frigus!" It was a simple cooling charm but backed with the power Aries contained it froze the molten stone, solidifying it and trapping the dragon.
A wordless spell caused thick black chains to wrap around the dragon's jaws and the Ukrainian Iron-Belly collapsed, defeated head on by a fifteen-year-old wizard.
A deafening roar from the stands sounded as he walked unharmed to collect his golden egg from the undamaged nest, one that he had ensure stayed on a single piece of rock that did not get melted.
Aries was dragged into the tent by a rather motherly looking nurse. It was a good thing too, as his adrenaline finally faded, and he nearly fell from exhaustion.
"Oh no you don't!" the woman cried. "Here, a quick Pepper-Up Potion should do. Long enough for you to get your scores and go to bed!" Aries downed the potion as she moved over to Diggory, who he noticed had a rather sickly-looking injury to his abdomen.
"Dragons! Honestly these people!" If he had to place a wager the woman was Madam Pomfrey, the school matron that Draco had told him about.
"Come on Aries!" Arianna shouted, pulling him off the bed and back into the stadium.
The dragon had been put to sleep and he didn't miss the rather dirty looks the dragon handlers were giving him.
They were going to have a tough time indeed getting the dragon out of that.
Dumbledore took pity on them and transfigured the molten rock in water, allowing them to carefully extract the dragon, before transfiguring it back.
Finally, the judges gave him his scores. Madame Maxine went first and looked rather upset as she sent up a silver ten.
Mr. Crouch game next and rewarded him with ten also, though Bagman gave him an eight with a frown, and Aries thought that his suspicion of his influence was correct.
Dumbledore gave him a respectful nod as he sent a ten into the air, and Kakaroff looked like a boy on Christmas as he also awarded him a ten.
"Forty-eight points!" Haydn exclaimed! "That's good enough for first place and I doubt Potter will beat that! Those twins better pay up." Aries' magical exhaustion was a little worse than he had predicated.
Dragon fire was not as similar to elemental fire as he'd thought, or perhaps he had never experienced true elemental fire.
He listened much more intently to Bagman's commentary for Potter than he had with Delacour or Diggory.
It sounded like a rather great feat, and he wondered if Viktor would be impressed with the boy's flying.
"Look at that! Our youngest champion is quickest to the egg! Well this is going to shorten the odds on Mr. Potter!" Madam Pomfrey seized the boy the minute he entered the tent, dragging him over to the bed next to Aries.
She cleaned a cut with a dab of some purple liquid that smoked and then looked as if she healed his shoulder.
"Now sit quietly for a minute, sit!" She commanded the boy. "And then you can go and get your scores." Aries' made to talk to him, but he stopped them when a red haired boy and that muggleborn Daphne disliked walked in.
Potter noticed their entrance immediately and tensed up.
"Thomas," the muggleborn, Hermione if he remembered correctly, greeted, "Ron has something he'd like to tell you." Ron, in Aries' opinion, did not look like he wanted to say anything. In fact, he looked highly embarrassed.
"Well, mate," Ron took a deep breath. "I believe you, who ever put your name it that goblet, I reckon they're trying to do you in!"
"Caught on have you?" The coldness in Thomas' voice surprised Aries and even more so Ron.
The chubby fourth year and the two red-heads quietly entered the tent and looked ready to intervene, but a warning glare from Aries stopped them.
"You abandoned me, and yet you have the audacity to come here and call me mate like nothing happened? You know how bad it was for me in my second year, at least then I had you both."
"But one chance at fame and suddenly you're just like the rest. I know that you tried to be the bridge between us Hermione, but too often this past month you chose him over me, even though you believed me."
Thomas gave a shake of his head, and some of the venom left his voice.
"You two were supposed to be my best friends, but you just abandoned me. I don't want to lose your friendships, but I don't think it will ever be the same again."
Aries was proud of the boy, he wouldn't allow those that betrayed him to just waltz back into his life. He was beginning to know his worth and would expect others to know it as well.
"Come on Thomas," said one of the red-heads, a fourth year if Aries guessed, grabbing the boy's hand and pulling him out to hear his scores as Ron and Hermione left the tent rejected.
Potter had scored forty points, putting him in second place.
The judges at least had valued Aries' show of power over the boys quickest, though facing a dragon head on versus flying around it was a far better tale to be told.
Bagman collected the four champions, explaining that the golden egg was a clue for their third task that would happen on twenty-fourth of February.
The second task however, would happen on the eleventh of December.
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