With a dry heave, I spat out the silver object that had been in my mouth for the last two hours.
Slytherin's Locket, cleaned of all the filth that Voldemort had put into it. The quasi-Piece of Eden created by the founders with the help of the Forge that could grant a magical ability to a lineage through rituals.
My entire body hurt, well, it was more of an uncomfortable itch close to hurting. A foreign sensation that I couldn't shake off no matter what. Like my skin wasn't my own. Like my bones went through another bout of growing pains – except I wasn't actually growing. Like my senses didn't fully belong to me.
The cloth of the shorts I was wearing felt completely wrong against my skin, too. I could even hear my hair growing, except it stayed the same, which made it all the more surreal. Or at least the few sweaty strands hanging in front of my eyes didn't change. I couldn't yet pay attention to all the other minute details.
"How do you feel?"
I turned toward the voice, replying with an exhausted breath and closed eyes, "Drained. Like I should sleep for a week. But I can't, because my body feels like it isn't my own. It's a weird sensation. Hundreds of weird sensations, really."
"You have very advanced Occlumency. It shouldn't take you long to get this ability under control and adjust to your new normal," a voice from my other side chimed in with a completely detached tone of voice.
Analytical, without much warmth or giddiness at having successfully completed such a demanding ritual that hasn't been used in centuries. Just like how she always spoke despite what we just achieved.
A metamorphmagus.
I just became one with the unique ability of the founder's treasure – just in time for the Triwizard Tournament that would select its champions in ten days.
The ritual needed a new moon, today was Wednesday, 21 October 1998. I had to wait a little for it despite Penelope having bought all the ritual ingredients for me in such a timely manner.
"Anything I need to keep in mind?" I asked breathlessly, my senses slowly catching up.
"Neither of us have ever been a metamorphmagus," Rowena's hologram answered plainly.
Plain enough to get Helga scolding her. "Come now, be a little more excited! The locket hasn't been used for its original purpose for almost a millenia. We made history! Again. Kind of."
Lady Hufflepuff looked at me kindly after the little outburst for my benefit, advising, "Use a glamor to make sure your haircolor doesn't suddenly change mid-conversation. Your body is trained to a very high degree, but the transition will be awkward because you have such fine control over your body. Try out some more extreme changes as fast as you can to learn how to compensate for the different lengths of your limbs and your changed center of gravity."
I nodded in gratitude. I might have already thought of those points, but it could never hurt to hear the wisdom of a witch as old and knowledgeable as her.
"Don't waste your magic on the glamor, I reconfigured the enchantments of the diadem to incorporate a glamor rune while the ritual was working its magic. Just wear it and you'll look like regular Talion to everybody in the castle. It will remain hidden from view, too," Rowena chimed in, her eyes – and probably most sensors of the Forge – scanning my body.
"Thank you, Lady Ravenclaw," I once more thanked in deference.
They really thought of everything.
"It's late, almost 'early' even. Get some sleep. I'd advise you to knock yourself out with a drowsiness charm," Helga helpfully added once I straightened from my small bow. "Maybe get a sleeping drought from Poppy."
"Until next time," I accepted, too giddy to even consider sleeping or taking a potion, and walked out of the Room of Requirements on the seventh floor where I could reach the two founders holed up in the Forge room below Hogwarts.
— — —
The next morning during my run around the Black Lake not much later, I stumbled a fifth time planting my face in the wet dirt.
I fought the urge to loudly spew profanities with my entire being.
"This is ridiculous! I have mastery over my body rivaling that of a Norse god, how do I trip over uneven ground just because I shortened my legs a little!?"
Nobody answered me this early in the morning, of course. I had barely laid down for two hours of rest after that exhausting ritual before I was too excited to try out mastering this new ability of mine.
Changing my face, even getting rid of the scar over my nose, had been too easy. With me being an animagus already, subtle changes like that felt like second nature. There was barely an effort needed, just plain conscious thought and intent.
But just like Lady Hufflepuff had pointed out, mastery over a changed body did not come easy. I knew now why Tonks, the only other known metamorph in the story and the British Isles at this moment, was such a klutz. Just walking with slightly shorter or longer legs from one moment to the next was a tremendously difficult task.
At least my control over the magical ability seemed to be minute right from the start, symmetry came to my body instinctually. I didn't need to consciously flex my magic to make sure my limbs remained at the same changed lengths.
"One more lap," I whispered under my breath with closed eyes, changed my height to become even shorter and pushed myself off the ground. Having learned from all my prior falls this morning, I chose to run a much slower pace than I was used to.
Just as I finished up and fixed my bodily dimensions to be what they originally were, Hagrid noticed my presence as he was feeding his chicken. It was nice to see him work with such mundane, domesticated creatures for once instead of acid-dripping monstrosities and flesh-ripping nightmare fuel clad in scales or patchy, furry skin.
"Yer up early lad," he commented with a warm, inviting smile after he noticed my presence.
"The sacrifices we make to keep fit," I waved away, returning the friendly greeting. "Need any help?"
"Nah, ye go wash up before breakfast starts. These chicks here don't make much work anyway," Hagrid declined, though he seemed to be delighted I even offered. Then, his eyes lit up even more, his beard trembling a little as he asked, "Ready to meet a unicorn? Helped one birth her foal last night and she agreed to show off her little baby to class this morn'."
"Woah, how'd you manage that?" I asked in genuine surprise.
Unicorns were naturally elusive creatures. Unless they sensed your innate goodness and kind intentions for them, you could never even meet them. They were too fast and their senses were way too good. Voldemort must have only been able to drink their blood in the original story because of some truly powerful spells.
"The mare is a kind soul," Hagrid humbly deflected with a shy smile. "Helped her once with a small wound and she took a liking to me."
"Just makes it even more impressive, don't sell yourself short, professor," I happily praised.
Hagrid was getting better as a professor each lesson and I already knew through the survival club that he had quite a bit of knowledge to share that he didn't even consciously think about. Small gestures when handling a magical creature that increased the chances for a positive interaction, little tidbits he himself shared as anecdotes but would be worthy of inclusion in Newt Scamander's books.
If Hagrid was a little more scholarly, and if our society was a little more accepting of a half-giant with an unjustly snapped wand, he could have written books approaching the level of acclaim to 'Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them'. Sure, Hagrid knew the magical beasts around Hogwarts best and had close to no first-hand experience with beasts living in foreign lands. But Scamander likely didn't know the likes and habits of beings like unicorns and thestrals quite like Hagrid did. Both of them outclassed most magizoologist on the British Isles by leagues, even if in different ways.
"Hurry off then," Hagrid shooed me away, too humble to accept the praise but he was beaming as he turned to continue tending to the chicken.
"See you after breakfast!" I shouted as I sprinted back to the castle at full speed with my original physique to reassure myself that I wasn't a stumbling buffoon after all.
— — —
A little over a week later, I stood outside of the castle together with most of the student body.
"Interested in the bets on how they will arrive?" George whispered from my left as the twins appeared behind me like ghosts. "Last chance right now, Lord Moneybags."
Fred leaned closer from my right. "You could win big. Lee and the two of us gathered a pool of thirteen-hundred galleons. Going rate is ten-times max if you're the only one to guess the correct method. Otherwise you'll have to share with the other winners. Maximum bet is a hundred galleons."
I didn't even think, because even if they changed their arrival method, the sum was paltry now with my growing estate.
"Sure, fifty galleons on Durmstrang arriving with a boat via the Black Lake's hidden underwater passage and fifty galleons on Beauxbaton arriving with a giant horse-drawn carriage getting pulled by winged Abraxan horses. Air-travel, of course."
George whistled as Fred accepted my money.
"First to bet on both of those, though air-travel is favored by many of those who bet," Fred commented. George continued, "We have four people betting on Beauxbaton arriving on a herd of Pegasi, horseback. A few bet on brooms. One even guessed magic carpets because they heard that the school took in a whole class from Tunisia."
George looked at me with narrowed eyes, asking, "Why do you think there's an underwater passage in the Black Lake? Have you found one during your dives? Most people bet on portkeys for Durmstrang. The spell was invented in Denmark, after all."
I only nodded with a secretive grin.
Almost their entire betting pool was as good as mine with the odds in my favor.
"Look!" Some first year suddenly shouted with an excited yelp.
The eyes of many first went to the firsties' direction before looking at where he was pointing.
Down at the lake, its calm mirror surface no longer reflected the gloomy clouded skies. Instead ripples were slowly growing into waves. Before long, a mast poked out of the water, clad with dark, dirty sails. With a last sloshing sound, the body of the ship broke through the surface, water running down the hull in tremendous volume.
The thing looked almost skeletal, like it was straight out of a muggle horror meets pirate movie. A shipwrecked boat that a group of ghostly pirates decided to call their home to haunt the waters near an abandoned port.
"Looks haunted, no?" I asked as I turned to the twins with a grin.
""Damn,"" they both whispered with a defeated, disbelieving expression.
George broke out of their stupor first, theatrically wiping away a tear as he quipped, "It was our own fault for going to you. Five-hundred galleon gone just like that. Could have kept it all, too."
Fred turned me around, pressed a quill on my back and wrote an I.O.U. on a piece of parchment. "Lee is going to be furious," he added with a genuinely upset huff.
I snatched the note from him with a wide smile, saying, "Pleasure doing business with you lads."
"And the rich get richer," George scoffed with a snort. As I turned to him to return the joke, he 'humbly' courtsied and added, "Your Lordship."
So I could only shake my head in amusement to not sound petty.
"Just remember, if it turns out that boat actually belongs to Beauxbaton or they didn't use an underwater passage to the ocean, the I.O.U. is void," Fred quipped, finally not sounding like a sore loser.
"Heh, just be ready to write me another," I said with a grin as I pointed toward the clouds.
Both twins turned wide-eyed at what just broke through the cloud cover.
"Nobody here even knows how to tell a horse from a unicorn. These could be any other winged horse species," Fred stiffly rebuffed the closer that carriage that flew to us high above the Forbidden Forest got.
"Yeah, could be any winged magical creature. Maybe those are transfigured goblins," George said through gritted teeth.
Heh, this loss probably stung.
"Make sure to include me in your next bets, boys," I said with my signature look of superiority.
"If those really are abraxans, we won't talk to you all year," George promised with a sour look.
"But we will use our last opportunity to really prank you," Fred added, playfully acting like a villain. "Our last year to really test out all the items we were going to sell at our store."
"Do your worst. Returning surprise dungballs between lessons is pretty good reflex training," I accepted with a smirk. "Constant vigilance!"
The real Moody's fake eye spun in our direction. The man had thanked me for pointing out that Crouch was an imposter which led to the authorities finding him bound and drugged in a locked chest. He still wasn't really a fan of me, but he didn't teach any of the classes I attended so I couldn't care less.
Just then we overheard the nearby Hagrid exclaim that the horses flying that carriage were actually abraxans as he joyfully explained to an impressed Professor Sprout that they enjoyed drinking single-malt whiskey the most.
Fred reluctantly and forcefully turned me around again to write another I.O.U. with my back as a flat surface.
"Not sure how, but you cheated," George whispered suspiciously.
I only shrugged with a shit-eating grin.
Several minutes later, the headmasters reached us first with their students following behind in orderly groups.
Igor Karkaroff, the retired death eater who now worked as headmaster for Durmstrang, boisterously greeted Dumbledore as though the two hadn't been enemies in the last war before the fall of Voldemort but best of friends instead.
Though, he couldn't help himself to deal a lowblow together with thinly veiled praise and insults. Karkaroff jabbed that our headmaster now had more free-time to plan such joyous events like the Triwizard Tournament. Without all those extra roles he had 'overworked' himself with before.
Those roles he lost in the big scandal around him that Rita Skeeter uncovered that led to him losing the Chief Warlock and even the Supreme Mugwump positions.
Olympe Maxime, headmistress of Beauxbaton and at the very least quarter-giant if her enormous physique was taken into consideration, was much more reserved than that. But only in comparison to Karkaroff. She was much more subtle than Snape about it, but she oozed superiority in every step she took with those ridiculously long, meaty legs of hers.
At least she was a neutral white in my Eagle Vision compared to the red of Karkaroff.
That grimy little asshole already wanted to harm me? Why? Did Voldemort reach out to him after I derailed the Imposter-Moody plan?
"Tssk."
Nobody paid attention to my disdainful look for the gaunt headmaster who already chose to be my enemy.
Too bad I couldn't kill inside the Hogwarts wards unless provoked. Maybe I could talk to the two founders to make an exception for me…
— — —
After the heads of schools from all three institutions were done with their dick-measuring contest that looked like Madam Maxime won by default, the Hogwarts students were ushered inside the Great Hall.
The tables looked a little longer today to make room for the extra students.
In order of arrival, the Durmstrang students were the first to enter with their little martial fireshow. It was clear that they had already chosen a champion when a stoic young man who looked suspiciously like Viktor Krum entered last with Karkaroff guiding him inside with a hand resting on the young wizard's shoulder. It shouldn't be Viktor, though.
The famed Bulgarian seeker graduated this summer.
Did he have a younger brother? A cousin, maybe?
"Very intimidating," Lisa whispered to Mandy and Sue a few seats away from me.
"They look so wild," Sue commented. Mandy immediately explained, "It's the fur coats. And the fact that they seem to not have discovered shaving charms."
I chuckled a little. Most of the seventh year Durmstrang students had neatly trimmed beards. Most of those hairy fashion statements covered the entire face with only a few exceptions for mutton chops and handlebar mustaches among the dominantly male student body of the Eastern-European school.
"That girl trailing behind Karkaroff seems familiar though," Hermione chimed in thoughtfully. "Where have I seen her?"
"Ekatarina," Isobel whispered in answer. Both of them had watched at least one of my dueling tournaments in person.
I smiled at the pretty witch who entered the Great Hall last. She was one of only five witches chosen to follow along for the Durmstrang roster.
And I had beaten her each time, twice in the finals of a tournament, on the international dueling circuit.
She immediately found me at the Ravenclaw table, her eyes lighting up. She chose to stand in front of me instead of following her headmaster and the rest of the Durmstrang students to the front.
"You have girlfriend still?" She asked after the noise of the Durmstrang performance died down a little, breaking rank even more than she already did by remaining in front of me. She firmly stood in front of me and paying no attention to anything else, hands on her hips below the fur coat faintly showing off the form-fitting leather armor she wore beneath.
Karkaroff turned around with barely concealed fury in his eyes for her brazen action but she didn't even notice.
"Uh, no?" I asked more than replied. But it hit me immediately that that was a problematic answer. She had offered to carry my child after my second official win against her, but I had declined, citing my romantic involvement and reluctance to cheat on my partner at the time.
Ekatarina Vaniye leaned closer with a satisfied smirk once she heard my answer, her perfectly braided blonde ponytail falling between us as she did. I was seated, she towered over me. Her massive fur coat made her presence all the more commanding. Seeing that I didn't flinch back and only regarded her with silent curiosity, she slowly closed the small distance between us, opened her mouth and licked my lips, dragging her tongue from my chin to the tip of my nose in one smooth motion.
"I make you mine. Long enough to make most talented brat of his generation," she promised and walked away to rejoin her fellow Durmstrang students.
I froze on the spot.
…what?
The entire hall was cloaked in stunned silence. Only Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws had heard her, but the silence fell on the students because of her actions anyway.
It was only broken when the leading Durmstrang students who didn't see what just happened finished their entrance with a resounding thud, banging their large firesticks that they had used for the choreography on the stone floor.
"That was AWESOME!" One of the Weasley twins suddenly shouted and I didn't think he meant the intricate choreography.
I remained sitting there with a blank expression until the Durmstrang students were seated at the Slytherin table. I didn't pay attention to anybody talking about or at me. Not even Luna who looked at me with the proudest smile I had ever seen on her face.
Once the Beauxbaton witches began their performance, I refocused my sight on them, quietly enjoying the pretty witches dancing and delicately sighing left and right, breaking hearts and creating crushes like a simple first year spell they could cast in their sleep. But my thoughts were not yet fully connected to my brain. I would have to fully enjoy the performance through my memories once I was done processing Ekatarina's actions.
Thankfully Occlumency at my level helped with that.
Beauxbaton arrived with witches only. No male student had followed them to frigid Scotland, Beauxbaton didn't have many to begin with. Only those from noble backgrounds were taken in, citing etiquette and tradition as the reason why. Surrounding schools like Stati Magia and Durmstrang therefore had a slightly increased ratio of male students because they took in young French wizards who didn't enter the illustrious French magic school hidden in the picturesque Pyrenees.
As such, their several dozen sky-blue-silk-draped beauties put on a show fit for the royal court of a particularly horny king.
Dreamy sighs magically echoing through the hall, enchanting butterflies hovering through the students around them, fluttering skirts following their soft-footed dance moves, modest but rather tight jackets to show just enough of their slim bodies. The performance had it all.
I could see that I wasn't the only one enjoying the show, even if I couldn't yet fully appreciate it.
Just like Karkaroff but a little more gracefully, Madam Maxime walked with one student already picked out of the crowd at the very back. Though different from the Durmstrang delegation, one young witch was walking beside the headmistress and the pre-chosen champion with quiet dignity.
I recognised her immediately before freezing again.
Fleur walked over with a mischievous grin, her eyes never leaving my face, and leaned closer to me with a smile that had every other young wizard in the hall forget who they were. Her allure wasn't even on full blast and it did nothing to change my state of mind because of my Occlumency, but she knew exactly what she was doing.
"I will not be so bold," she whispered just for me to hear and leaned over to kiss my cheek, leaving behind a bright red lipstick mark.
Headmistress Maxime looked back with an exasperated sigh on her lips but just shook her head with a small roll of her eyes. The graceful giant of a witch seemed to be reluctantly accepting of Fleur's antics.
"Madam Maxime chose me as an apprentice and I accepted just to meet with you again, mon cherie," Fleur said with a grin as she looked me in the eyes, our faces close. With a wink, she straightened again and followed behind her delegation with graceful steps.
I just sighed and turned around on the bench to stare at my empty plate, choosing not to pay any attention to the end of the performance or the start of Dumbledore's speech while the Beauxbaton students made their way over to mingle with the Ravenclaw students.
As I was ignoring everything around me, Luna on my right scooched away from me to make room for someone. Mandy on the left did the same.
"May I introduce you?" Fleur once again said from my right side, her body leaning against me and her voice dripping with mischief. "Sitting on your left is the witch who is going to be Beauxbaton's champion, Carina Black."
I stiffened again.
Oh no.