Chapter 11: - The First Task
"You ready for this afternoon?" Kari asked, early the next morning as the two attempted to eat breakfast before the rest of the group had come down from washing after training.
"I suppose." Harry said morosely.
"Do you have the spell working?"
Harry nodded.
"Then what's to worry about?" Kari asked, "Your plan has a better chance of working then mine, I'm not even sure the spell's going to be strong enough."
"You're trying to chain it down, right?"
"Uh huh, it's like that 'Incarcerous' spell that Quirrell was using back in first year, but for chains instead of ropes."
"At least you're doing something sane!"
"You didn't have to take Yami's advice." Kari pointed out. "But it is the best you've had so far."
"If you're comparing it to Malfoy's 'you should just roll over and die now, Potter' that's not saying much."
"True but I have a point."
"A lousy one."
"It's still a point."
Yesterday's 'fun' Divination lesson had done nothing to improve Harry's mood and when they were finally joined by the last of the gang, Harry quite happily hid behind the much larger Joey while Kari was kept so deep in conversation by Ombre and Hermione, those who wanted to wind her up didn't get a look in.
Class seemed to vanish without any time passing at all, and it was only by dint of Yugi keeping them level headed, that they got through them without killing someone, specifically the someones who kept saying things like, 'oh we'll see you at the funeral' and 'don't worry, we'll keep the path to the hospital wing clear'.
Before the pair knew what was going on, it was lunch time, not that they ate much, and Professor McGonagall was coming to get them.
"Now," She said as she led them down into the grounds and around the Forbidden Forest, where, Harry noted in a mental aside to Yugi and Yami, the dragons had been shielded from view using a tent, "Don't panic. We have got wizards on hand in case the situation gets out of hand, just do your best and no one will think any worse of you… are you alright?"
Kari just nodded as Harry answered. She had the feeling the babbling was aimed more at her friend then at her anyway. She walked with them, right up until they reached the entrance of the tent, which was facing towards from them, "You two are to wait here, with the other champions and wait your turn. Mr Bagman is in there, he'll be telling you the procedure, good luck…"
"Thank you." Kari half bowed and entered the tent.
"Thanks." Harry nodded, and followed, to find Kari was in fact playing with her cartouche she'd gotten years ago and that he hadn't seen her wear in just over a year, stood a little to one side of the tent. While a pale and clammy Fleur sat in a corner on a stool and Krum looked surlier then usual.
"Ah Harry, come in." Bagman said happily, "Now we're all here, it's time to fill you in. When the audience has gathered, I'm going to offering each of you this bag," He held said bag up, "From which you will each select a small model of the thing you are about to face. There are… different…types, you see and your task is to recover the Golden Egg."
Harry and Kari glanced at each other, nodded just once and settled into a corner of the tent to discuss Duel Monsters tactics to try and get their mind off the bloody great big dragons they were about to fight.
"Arena's nearly full, it's almost time." Harry heard Yugi murmur and gulped.
"No mind links Harry." Kari reminded him.
"I know."
Once the sound of feet passing the tent had stopped, Bagman started opening the sack.
"Ladies first." He offered it to Fleur and Kari.
"Go on." Kari motioned to Fleur.
Fleur stuck her hand in, and drew out a tiny, but perfect model of a Welsh Green with the number two around it's neck. From Fleur's lack of surprise, the pair figured that Madam Maxine had in fact told her what was to come.
Kari's hand went in, and came back with a blueish grey Swedish Short-Snout with the number one tied around its neck.
"Great, just great."
Krum looked just as unsurprised as Fleur and Kari, and drew out the Chinese Fireball, with the number three.
This, of course left Harry with dragon number four, the Hungarian Horntail. It stretched it's wings and bared its teeth at him.
"There you are, Miss Ironhide, you'll be first, if you want to wait by that entrance…" Kari nodded, putting the dragon in her pocket and drawing her wand. "Harry, could I have a word? Outside?"
"I dunno, we're kind of avoiding being alone with anyone at the moment," Kari said, looking over. "Especially after Skeeter's article."
"Understandable, but I'm not the press…"
Harry looked at Kari, who shrugged and turned back to the entrance.
By the time Harry got back Kari was emerging from it, looking pale.
"Good luck." Harry told her, trying to give her a reassuring smile.
"You too." Kari grinned slightly.
Harry was in the tent only seconds before the roar of the crowd told him that Kari was now facing her dragon.
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Stepping out into the arena wasn't actually the hard part, for someone as used to large crowds as Kari was, it was in fact the easiest part of the whole situation.
The hard part was the huge bluey grey dragon facing her.
Duel Monster dragons she could handle, she did it way too easily and way too often.
But this was very different, and as she dived under the dragon's fiery breath, she turned as she carried on rolling, and got back up, "Redimio!"
Chains appeared out of nowhere, conjured by the spell, holding the dragon and allowing Kari to get close to the nest...
She froze as she heard the chains groaning and heard something snap, diving to the ground in time to avoid having her head taken off by broken chain.
Attempting to cast it again, Kari had to retreat for the moment to avoid searing flame and wildly thrashing tail. The dragon, still half bound, had enough leeway to attempt to flame her to cinders.
Kari dove under one lot of flames, narrowly avoided another, and cast again, "Redimio!"
The chains held long enough this time for her to grab the golden egg.
The crowd roared and Kari fled as she heard the creak again, missing the fact the tail was loose and had it slam into her back, causing her to go crashing into a pile of rocks, by which point the dragon keepers had moved in.
"Miss Ironhide?" One asked, noting with surprise that she'd protected the egg from impact and offering a hand up, "You OK?"
"Ow." She took it, wincing as her non-egg carrying arm protested the rough treatment, "Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow."
At least that was over with…
She wondered if she could find somewhere to watch Harry's turn from.
Then she wondered who long it would be until Madam Pomfrey would be through with her and if she'd be finished by the time it was Harry's turn.
Kari took note of her scores and left.
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Harry was terrified when he came out of the tent and entered the arena.
So far no one had come back after their task and either that meant that they were going somewhere else afterwards, maybe the crowd… his friends and magic bonds were easy to pick out of the crowd and Kari wasn't with them… or they'd been taken straight up to the hospital wing.
He seriously hoped it was the former of the two, but he couldn't allow himself to be distracted, as he tried to concentrate on nothing but what he needed… "Accio Firebolt!"
There was a horrible couple of moments when Harry was sure it hadn't worked, and then the broom was there, and the roaring crowd, the commentating, the fear, was ignorable when he left the ground, leaving the dragon the size of a dog, far below him.
Speeding downwards and spiraling around the dragon, making it dizzy and dodging flames, but he too was clobbered by the tail, it was just his bad luck that this tail was spiked and while it was only a graze, it hurt like no bodies business.
Finally he enticed the dragon to take off, acting as bait on a lure for her, rising slowly higher and higher and irritating her until she finally had had enough and took off in an attempt to eat that annoying little bug flying around her head.
Harry dived, immediately sensing Yami and Yugi's elation as he dove under the dragon, grabbed the golden egg and was soaring out over the stands, with the egg tucked under his uninjured arm, and to Harry it suddenly sounded like the crowd had exploded in noise.
Doubling back, he saw the dragon keepers rushing forward and Professors McGonagall and Moody rushing forwards, along with Hagrid, grins evident.
He landed next to them, Hagrid talking his ear off as they led him to the First-Aid tent, where the gang were already waiting.
"What I want to know," Kari said as Madam Pomfrey patched Harry up and sent him outside with the others to get his scores, "Is why bruises always take that much longer to heal, broken bones, a heartbeat, deep bruising…"
"What happened?" Harry asked, indicating her arm.
"Didn't watch the tail, as I'm likely to be reminded by everyone." She groaned.
With that they were descended upon by the gang, who had been kicked out of the first aid tent, by Madam Pomfrey, for hovering, who proceeded to sing their praises.
"What's the scoring system?" Harry asked.
"Marks out of ten from each of them." Kari advised, as Madam Maxine conjured a golden eight, they waited until all of Harry's marks were counted and then there was a another explosion of noise over which Yugi tried to explain something over the noise, gave up and sent, "You're tied for first place with Krum, Kari's in third, Fleur's in last."
Harry grinned at Yugi and looked at Kari, "Well done." She grinned, "You did much better then me from what I heard of it."
"We got em, didn't we?" Harry replied, "That's all that matters, one down, two to go."
Professor McGonagall hurried them towards the tent again and they stayed long enough to be told that the egg was a clue to the next task and be sent away, upon which they were pounced on again by the gang but this time they included two others.
"Grandpa!" Kari giggled, "What're you doing here?"
"Family are allowed to come and watch the tasks, you scared me half to death young lady."
"Sorry." Kari paused, noting that Harry was having a, rather forced, conversation with his cousin, who was going ape over the presence of dragons, "Did Sirius not come?"
"He's alright, just got into a bit of a scrap, so I said I'd bring Dudley."
A bit of a scrap wouldn't have stopped Sirius considering that he'd broken out of prison to stop Pettigrew killing Harry, but Yami refrained from mentioning this in order to let Kari and Harry enjoy their victory.
"Kari." Seto was hovering about halfway back to Hogwarts, eyes widening at the sight of who was with them. "Muto Solomon." Kaiba bowed.
Solomon frowned, "Kaiba Seto." He bowed back.
There was a tense moment while the two looked at each other, and Seto realized that the old man still hadn't forgiven him for ripping his Blue Eyes. Not that Kaiba could blame him, he wouldn't forgive someone for wreaking one of his dragons either.
Then Kari grinned at him, "I bet you want one of those now to guard the mansion, right Seto?"
"I might think about it."
"He so wants one." Mokuba giggled as he passed with his girls, "See you back in the Common Room, well done guys!"
"What's he planning?" Yami frowned.
"When do you have to go back?" Kari asked.
"I have a flight back tomorrow, but I'm getting a floo with Dudley to the hotel later on. Why? Are you trying to get rid of me?"
"No!" Kari laughed, "I just wondered."
"I have a couple of students working for me at the moment and they've got the shop covered, it's not like it's Tournament season."
"Hello." The group stopped, Solomon wondering why suddenly they were all scowling.
"Miss Skeeter." Kaiba moved to the front of the group.
"I was just wondering if I could have a word with Harry."
"No." Seto shook his head, "You'll kindly leave the area without speaking to any of those present, otherwise you'll find my company breathing down your neck. After your last article accused one of my employees of dating underage children, you'll find that my company can do a lot to make your life unpleasant."
Skeeter left, scowling.
"You do realize she'll accuse you of dating Harry next." Ombre said.
Seto shrugged, "I just wanted to congratulate Kari on the defeat of the dragon." He said, smiling at her slightly, "Now if I know the Weasley twins as well as I think I do, you'll have a party to get to, so…"
"Have a good night Seto."
"Enjoy your party."
Kari felt something move in her pocket and her tiny miniature dragon popped it's head up and looked at her. "Seto wait."
"Huh?" Seto turned to look at her.
"Look after him for me?" She asked, passing the little dragon over, where it settled on Kaiba's shoulder and went to sleep.
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They sent a letter off to Sirius, written a little from each with great huge descriptions on how Harry and Kari had beaten their dragons and seen Grandpa Muto off, using the fireplace in Professor McGonagall's room, and by the time they returned to the Common Room the party was in full swing, food, drink even a bit of music provided by a laptop using Mokuba.
There was another round of cheers and Harry and Kari had to shout to be heard over the noise of the Common Room, the wet start Filibuster Fireworks that was making the air thick with stars.
Yami examined a pair of banners, typical examples of ones that hung all around the room, one of which depicted Harry flying around a dragon's head, the other depicting Kari stood atop a chained down dragon. Dean Thomas had to have done them, he recognised the art work.
Hermione ended up in a conversation with Fred and George about the House Elves, which was disturbed by Neville turning into a canary, while Harry and Kari tucked into massively heaped plates of food, golden eggs sat side by side as they tucked in.
"Whoa this is heavy." Seamus picked Harry's up, and shook it carefully. "What's in it?"
"We don't know." Kari answered between mouthfuls. "Something to do with the tasks."
"Go on, open it."
"Go on!" The sentiment echoed around the Common Room, so Kari shrugged, dug her nails into hers and prised it open.
It was hollow but the sound that issued from it was so horrible it was shut again in less then a couple of seconds. This led onto a helpful discussion by the guys as to what it could be including a Banshee, the Cruciatus Curse and Percy in the shower.
"Harry, can I…?"
Harry turned around to find Joey hovering nervously.
"Can you what?"
"Can I have your dragon?"
Harry laughed, unaware he was being watched miserably from the stairs to the boy's dorm, and handed over the miniature Hungarian Horntail, who instead of reacting as it had to anyone else, settled on Joey and peered out from over the top of his robes pocket at people.
"I think you'd make a good dragon handler." Harry laughed, pointing at the dragon, who snapped at his finger irritably.
"I may well become one." Joey said, leaning back against the wall and plonking his plate of food down, "But there's a long way to go and destinies to be fulfilled before that happens."
"Joey?" Harry asked, worried, since Joey tried to avoid being this deep if he could help it.
"I heard Yugi and Yami discussing Egypt." Joey said, "I'd completely forgotten in the excitement of the Tournament."
"When?"
"Not till the Summer, and then they're talking about get Isuzu to bring the tablet to Domino instead of going to Egypt, so Yami doesn't have to leave."
"That's cool."
"Uh huh." Joey nodded.
"So if he gets his memories back, do you think we'll have to address him as Pharaoh all the time?" Harry asked half jokingly.
"I'll address him as Royal-Pain-In-The-Arse if we do."
Harry laughed.
"You did good Harry. I want a dragon, but I don't know if I could have fought one like that."
"You could. You faced down Ra and nearly won, didn't you?"
Joey looked bashful.
"Ah hah!" Harry laughed, "I can get you to look bashful, it's not just a Yugi trick!"
With that he had to scramble halfway across the Common Room, Joey in hot pursuit calling something about noogies.
When Harry finally got up to the Common Room at one o'clock the next morning, Ron was already asleep, and Harry wondered if it was bad that he hadn't missed Ron during the festivities…
However, that line of thought didn't last very long as Harry changed and slipped into bed, the events of the day finally catching up to him, and he joined the others in slipping into a dreamless sleep.
"I suppose." Harry said morosely.
"Do you have the spell working?"
Harry nodded.
"Then what's to worry about?" Kari asked, "Your plan has a better chance of working then mine, I'm not even sure the spell's going to be strong enough."
"You're trying to chain it down, right?"
"Uh huh, it's like that 'Incarcerous' spell that Quirrell was using back in first year, but for chains instead of ropes."
"At least you're doing something sane!"
"You didn't have to take Yami's advice." Kari pointed out. "But it is the best you've had so far."
"If you're comparing it to Malfoy's 'you should just roll over and die now, Potter' that's not saying much."
"True but I have a point."
"A lousy one."
"It's still a point."
Yesterday's 'fun' Divination lesson had done nothing to improve Harry's mood and when they were finally joined by the last of the gang, Harry quite happily hid behind the much larger Joey while Kari was kept so deep in conversation by Ombre and Hermione, those who wanted to wind her up didn't get a look in.
Class seemed to vanish without any time passing at all, and it was only by dint of Yugi keeping them level headed, that they got through them without killing someone, specifically the someones who kept saying things like, 'oh we'll see you at the funeral' and 'don't worry, we'll keep the path to the hospital wing clear'.
Before the pair knew what was going on, it was lunch time, not that they ate much, and Professor McGonagall was coming to get them.
"Now," She said as she led them down into the grounds and around the Forbidden Forest, where, Harry noted in a mental aside to Yugi and Yami, the dragons had been shielded from view using a tent, "Don't panic. We have got wizards on hand in case the situation gets out of hand, just do your best and no one will think any worse of you… are you alright?"
Kari just nodded as Harry answered. She had the feeling the babbling was aimed more at her friend then at her anyway. She walked with them, right up until they reached the entrance of the tent, which was facing towards from them, "You two are to wait here, with the other champions and wait your turn. Mr Bagman is in there, he'll be telling you the procedure, good luck…"
"Thank you." Kari half bowed and entered the tent.
"Thanks." Harry nodded, and followed, to find Kari was in fact playing with her cartouche she'd gotten years ago and that he hadn't seen her wear in just over a year, stood a little to one side of the tent. While a pale and clammy Fleur sat in a corner on a stool and Krum looked surlier then usual.
"Ah Harry, come in." Bagman said happily, "Now we're all here, it's time to fill you in. When the audience has gathered, I'm going to offering each of you this bag," He held said bag up, "From which you will each select a small model of the thing you are about to face. There are… different…types, you see and your task is to recover the Golden Egg."
Harry and Kari glanced at each other, nodded just once and settled into a corner of the tent to discuss Duel Monsters tactics to try and get their mind off the bloody great big dragons they were about to fight.
"Arena's nearly full, it's almost time." Harry heard Yugi murmur and gulped.
"No mind links Harry." Kari reminded him.
"I know."
Once the sound of feet passing the tent had stopped, Bagman started opening the sack.
"Ladies first." He offered it to Fleur and Kari.
"Go on." Kari motioned to Fleur.
Fleur stuck her hand in, and drew out a tiny, but perfect model of a Welsh Green with the number two around it's neck. From Fleur's lack of surprise, the pair figured that Madam Maxine had in fact told her what was to come.
Kari's hand went in, and came back with a blueish grey Swedish Short-Snout with the number one tied around its neck.
"Great, just great."
Krum looked just as unsurprised as Fleur and Kari, and drew out the Chinese Fireball, with the number three.
This, of course left Harry with dragon number four, the Hungarian Horntail. It stretched it's wings and bared its teeth at him.
"There you are, Miss Ironhide, you'll be first, if you want to wait by that entrance…" Kari nodded, putting the dragon in her pocket and drawing her wand. "Harry, could I have a word? Outside?"
"I dunno, we're kind of avoiding being alone with anyone at the moment," Kari said, looking over. "Especially after Skeeter's article."
"Understandable, but I'm not the press…"
Harry looked at Kari, who shrugged and turned back to the entrance.
By the time Harry got back Kari was emerging from it, looking pale.
"Good luck." Harry told her, trying to give her a reassuring smile.
"You too." Kari grinned slightly.
Harry was in the tent only seconds before the roar of the crowd told him that Kari was now facing her dragon.
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Stepping out into the arena wasn't actually the hard part, for someone as used to large crowds as Kari was, it was in fact the easiest part of the whole situation.
The hard part was the huge bluey grey dragon facing her.
Duel Monster dragons she could handle, she did it way too easily and way too often.
But this was very different, and as she dived under the dragon's fiery breath, she turned as she carried on rolling, and got back up, "Redimio!"
Chains appeared out of nowhere, conjured by the spell, holding the dragon and allowing Kari to get close to the nest...
She froze as she heard the chains groaning and heard something snap, diving to the ground in time to avoid having her head taken off by broken chain.
Attempting to cast it again, Kari had to retreat for the moment to avoid searing flame and wildly thrashing tail. The dragon, still half bound, had enough leeway to attempt to flame her to cinders.
Kari dove under one lot of flames, narrowly avoided another, and cast again, "Redimio!"
The chains held long enough this time for her to grab the golden egg.
The crowd roared and Kari fled as she heard the creak again, missing the fact the tail was loose and had it slam into her back, causing her to go crashing into a pile of rocks, by which point the dragon keepers had moved in.
"Miss Ironhide?" One asked, noting with surprise that she'd protected the egg from impact and offering a hand up, "You OK?"
"Ow." She took it, wincing as her non-egg carrying arm protested the rough treatment, "Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow."
At least that was over with…
She wondered if she could find somewhere to watch Harry's turn from.
Then she wondered who long it would be until Madam Pomfrey would be through with her and if she'd be finished by the time it was Harry's turn.
Kari took note of her scores and left.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Harry was terrified when he came out of the tent and entered the arena.
So far no one had come back after their task and either that meant that they were going somewhere else afterwards, maybe the crowd… his friends and magic bonds were easy to pick out of the crowd and Kari wasn't with them… or they'd been taken straight up to the hospital wing.
He seriously hoped it was the former of the two, but he couldn't allow himself to be distracted, as he tried to concentrate on nothing but what he needed… "Accio Firebolt!"
There was a horrible couple of moments when Harry was sure it hadn't worked, and then the broom was there, and the roaring crowd, the commentating, the fear, was ignorable when he left the ground, leaving the dragon the size of a dog, far below him.
Speeding downwards and spiraling around the dragon, making it dizzy and dodging flames, but he too was clobbered by the tail, it was just his bad luck that this tail was spiked and while it was only a graze, it hurt like no bodies business.
Finally he enticed the dragon to take off, acting as bait on a lure for her, rising slowly higher and higher and irritating her until she finally had had enough and took off in an attempt to eat that annoying little bug flying around her head.
Harry dived, immediately sensing Yami and Yugi's elation as he dove under the dragon, grabbed the golden egg and was soaring out over the stands, with the egg tucked under his uninjured arm, and to Harry it suddenly sounded like the crowd had exploded in noise.
Doubling back, he saw the dragon keepers rushing forward and Professors McGonagall and Moody rushing forwards, along with Hagrid, grins evident.
He landed next to them, Hagrid talking his ear off as they led him to the First-Aid tent, where the gang were already waiting.
"What I want to know," Kari said as Madam Pomfrey patched Harry up and sent him outside with the others to get his scores, "Is why bruises always take that much longer to heal, broken bones, a heartbeat, deep bruising…"
"What happened?" Harry asked, indicating her arm.
"Didn't watch the tail, as I'm likely to be reminded by everyone." She groaned.
With that they were descended upon by the gang, who had been kicked out of the first aid tent, by Madam Pomfrey, for hovering, who proceeded to sing their praises.
"What's the scoring system?" Harry asked.
"Marks out of ten from each of them." Kari advised, as Madam Maxine conjured a golden eight, they waited until all of Harry's marks were counted and then there was a another explosion of noise over which Yugi tried to explain something over the noise, gave up and sent, "You're tied for first place with Krum, Kari's in third, Fleur's in last."
Harry grinned at Yugi and looked at Kari, "Well done." She grinned, "You did much better then me from what I heard of it."
"We got em, didn't we?" Harry replied, "That's all that matters, one down, two to go."
Professor McGonagall hurried them towards the tent again and they stayed long enough to be told that the egg was a clue to the next task and be sent away, upon which they were pounced on again by the gang but this time they included two others.
"Grandpa!" Kari giggled, "What're you doing here?"
"Family are allowed to come and watch the tasks, you scared me half to death young lady."
"Sorry." Kari paused, noting that Harry was having a, rather forced, conversation with his cousin, who was going ape over the presence of dragons, "Did Sirius not come?"
"He's alright, just got into a bit of a scrap, so I said I'd bring Dudley."
A bit of a scrap wouldn't have stopped Sirius considering that he'd broken out of prison to stop Pettigrew killing Harry, but Yami refrained from mentioning this in order to let Kari and Harry enjoy their victory.
"Kari." Seto was hovering about halfway back to Hogwarts, eyes widening at the sight of who was with them. "Muto Solomon." Kaiba bowed.
Solomon frowned, "Kaiba Seto." He bowed back.
There was a tense moment while the two looked at each other, and Seto realized that the old man still hadn't forgiven him for ripping his Blue Eyes. Not that Kaiba could blame him, he wouldn't forgive someone for wreaking one of his dragons either.
Then Kari grinned at him, "I bet you want one of those now to guard the mansion, right Seto?"
"I might think about it."
"He so wants one." Mokuba giggled as he passed with his girls, "See you back in the Common Room, well done guys!"
"What's he planning?" Yami frowned.
"When do you have to go back?" Kari asked.
"I have a flight back tomorrow, but I'm getting a floo with Dudley to the hotel later on. Why? Are you trying to get rid of me?"
"No!" Kari laughed, "I just wondered."
"I have a couple of students working for me at the moment and they've got the shop covered, it's not like it's Tournament season."
"Hello." The group stopped, Solomon wondering why suddenly they were all scowling.
"Miss Skeeter." Kaiba moved to the front of the group.
"I was just wondering if I could have a word with Harry."
"No." Seto shook his head, "You'll kindly leave the area without speaking to any of those present, otherwise you'll find my company breathing down your neck. After your last article accused one of my employees of dating underage children, you'll find that my company can do a lot to make your life unpleasant."
Skeeter left, scowling.
"You do realize she'll accuse you of dating Harry next." Ombre said.
Seto shrugged, "I just wanted to congratulate Kari on the defeat of the dragon." He said, smiling at her slightly, "Now if I know the Weasley twins as well as I think I do, you'll have a party to get to, so…"
"Have a good night Seto."
"Enjoy your party."
Kari felt something move in her pocket and her tiny miniature dragon popped it's head up and looked at her. "Seto wait."
"Huh?" Seto turned to look at her.
"Look after him for me?" She asked, passing the little dragon over, where it settled on Kaiba's shoulder and went to sleep.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
They sent a letter off to Sirius, written a little from each with great huge descriptions on how Harry and Kari had beaten their dragons and seen Grandpa Muto off, using the fireplace in Professor McGonagall's room, and by the time they returned to the Common Room the party was in full swing, food, drink even a bit of music provided by a laptop using Mokuba.
There was another round of cheers and Harry and Kari had to shout to be heard over the noise of the Common Room, the wet start Filibuster Fireworks that was making the air thick with stars.
Yami examined a pair of banners, typical examples of ones that hung all around the room, one of which depicted Harry flying around a dragon's head, the other depicting Kari stood atop a chained down dragon. Dean Thomas had to have done them, he recognised the art work.
Hermione ended up in a conversation with Fred and George about the House Elves, which was disturbed by Neville turning into a canary, while Harry and Kari tucked into massively heaped plates of food, golden eggs sat side by side as they tucked in.
"Whoa this is heavy." Seamus picked Harry's up, and shook it carefully. "What's in it?"
"We don't know." Kari answered between mouthfuls. "Something to do with the tasks."
"Go on, open it."
"Go on!" The sentiment echoed around the Common Room, so Kari shrugged, dug her nails into hers and prised it open.
It was hollow but the sound that issued from it was so horrible it was shut again in less then a couple of seconds. This led onto a helpful discussion by the guys as to what it could be including a Banshee, the Cruciatus Curse and Percy in the shower.
"Harry, can I…?"
Harry turned around to find Joey hovering nervously.
"Can you what?"
"Can I have your dragon?"
Harry laughed, unaware he was being watched miserably from the stairs to the boy's dorm, and handed over the miniature Hungarian Horntail, who instead of reacting as it had to anyone else, settled on Joey and peered out from over the top of his robes pocket at people.
"I think you'd make a good dragon handler." Harry laughed, pointing at the dragon, who snapped at his finger irritably.
"I may well become one." Joey said, leaning back against the wall and plonking his plate of food down, "But there's a long way to go and destinies to be fulfilled before that happens."
"Joey?" Harry asked, worried, since Joey tried to avoid being this deep if he could help it.
"I heard Yugi and Yami discussing Egypt." Joey said, "I'd completely forgotten in the excitement of the Tournament."
"When?"
"Not till the Summer, and then they're talking about get Isuzu to bring the tablet to Domino instead of going to Egypt, so Yami doesn't have to leave."
"That's cool."
"Uh huh." Joey nodded.
"So if he gets his memories back, do you think we'll have to address him as Pharaoh all the time?" Harry asked half jokingly.
"I'll address him as Royal-Pain-In-The-Arse if we do."
Harry laughed.
"You did good Harry. I want a dragon, but I don't know if I could have fought one like that."
"You could. You faced down Ra and nearly won, didn't you?"
Joey looked bashful.
"Ah hah!" Harry laughed, "I can get you to look bashful, it's not just a Yugi trick!"
With that he had to scramble halfway across the Common Room, Joey in hot pursuit calling something about noogies.
When Harry finally got up to the Common Room at one o'clock the next morning, Ron was already asleep, and Harry wondered if it was bad that he hadn't missed Ron during the festivities…
However, that line of thought didn't last very long as Harry changed and slipped into bed, the events of the day finally catching up to him, and he joined the others in slipping into a dreamless sleep.