It was the day of the second task.
I noticed that Luna was missing. Hermione, too. So was that seventh year Slytherin witch who was Krum's date.
Coincidentally, I was not the only champion who wouldn't have to search for my date from the Yule Ball. Roger Davies was fine. Instead, Fleur was missing from breakfast earlier.
It was no mystery to me why they didn't take Ekatarina for me to retrieve. The Belarusian witch had left Hogwarts around New Year's festivities after she got what she came for. Which definitely stung and for more than a good dozen reasons.
At least she had been upfront about what she wanted.
"Good luck," I said as Catarina stood next to me in a bulky coat.
She ignored me entirely.
A little resentful, I whispered, "You're gonna need it."
The young Black witch had not spoken a word to me since the Yule Ball ended. I wasn't a clueless idiot who had no idea why, but that didn't stop me from feeling wronged anyway. Yet, since we were not a couple in the first place, I eventually simply let it go.
I ignored the introductions by the host, Ludo Bagman. The man was an opportunistic asshole with a terrible personality. Still, I calmly shrugged off my own coat when I was given the go ahead as the person with the most points from the first task.
I was only in trunks now showing off my physique despite the cold. I didn't plan to get wet, I just wanted everyone to see how thorough my preparations were. Immediately, green runic tattoos lit up on my feet before I reached the water.
To the astonished gaze of everyone, my walk simply continued on the mirror surface of the Black Lake. The first spell held true. I raised my hand, a string of runes on my thighs lit up, as well as my left index finger.
Unhurriedly, even as Vlad and Carina joined the race I crouched down midstep and touched the surface with the glowing finger and the surface of the lake calmed down even more than before. More than that, from above ground, everyone was finally able to see until the very sea floor as if the water was empty air.
I stood above the four hostages while Vlad and Karina were still hundreds of meters away near the shore. They had to deal with the cold and murky waters with no clue where to go. Harry was about to join last, his gaze shocked. But before he could do so, all runes on my upper body lit up with green fire.
For theatrics, part of that fire became a staff writhing in eery green spellflames. I slammed the staff down with both hands.
With a last bow for the cheering crowd, the body of water split from shore to shore and I dropped down toward the hostages. They were still bound by seaweed and suspended midair while in stasis. Their clothes and hair were still wet.
I landed on the bottom of the sea with a feather light step. To do that, more runes were used to slow my fall. With a turn of my hand, a silver dagger appeared in my palm and I cut free all four hostages as the mermaids were screeching at me. Since I was out of the water, it didn't translate well. I could only assume they were telling me to only take my hostage.
But I couldn't know that realistically, could I?
With a smirk for all of the waterdwellers, I gathered all four hostages only picking up Luna in a princess carry. The rest were floating ahead of me as my spell that split the sea slowly began to unravel. The water further away began to crush into the unnatural chasm. Only while closer to me, the effects were gentler in nature. The water level below my feet still rose at a hurried, accelerating pace but my feet and consequently I were not swallowed by the depths.
Instead, I was shot out of the lake like a drop of rain water that was spit back up from a puddle. The three other hostages were still linked to me and floating in the same distance to me as before. Luna was faintly smirking, the first one to properly wake up from the stasis charm.
"You're awfully sure you think I know what I'm doing?"
"I'd be surprised if we plummet to our death now. Haunting a lake would be fun though," Luna whispered back as we were still in the air. I was sure she had her eagle vision active despite her closed eyes.
Walking on water was not miraculous enough. Splitting a magical body of water was not enough showmanship. I added gliding toward the shore on wings of green spellflames to the list of things I did with runic spells to really sell how ridiculously ahead I was of my opponents.
"Taking them all is a little unfair to the others, no?"
"There is no earthly or magical way for me to care less. I joined this competition as an insult to everyone else," I scoffed with an amused grin.
"Even me?"
"Everyone who stands in the way of progress."
"They'll band together in their dislike for you. You won't get them to join your cause like that," Luna whispered back and I frowned.
"I don't need them all. I need those that are hungry for more. They'll see what I am capable of and be inspired."
Luna nodded just before we touched the ground. "I heard people speaking about your terrifying 'animate dragon' spell combination in the library a lot these past weeks."
I filed that away but didn't comment on it. Ignoring the cheers, I walked toward the tent with the red cross above it.
"Need more help getting dry and warming up?"
Luna shook her head, splashing me with lake water like a puppy. Then, she jumped from my arms and skipped toward the waiting Madam Pomfrey who was already gesturing for me to bring the other hostages of the task inside her tent.
I deposited the three still unconscious witches on beds and began to inspect my skin. A lot of the runic paint had already peeled off to show lightly reddened skin underneath. I had carefully constructed each spell sequence so that I wouldn't have to overpower the magic, but that spell that split the lake had still taken quite a bit of juice.
It had drained me mentally, more than I would care to admit. Still, I walked out of the healer's tent and waved toward the cheering and booing audience. Taking out a wand from my thigh holster, I summoned my cloak still lying on the shore. Then I transfigured the ground to become comfortable, warm furboots, and walked toward the balcony for the jury.
Everyone was openly frowning at me.
"What the hell was that? We ought to give you no points and disqualify you!" Karkaroff barked angrily as he pointed at me with a gaunt finger.
"What for?" I asked with a serene smile entirely out of place when looking at the judges.
"Clearly, you were meant to take only your own hostage!"
"I'm sorry, but the riddle said someone precious to me would be taken. I adore Luna, I cherish Hermione, I like Fleur, and I would never leave behind a precious fellow Hogwarts student alone, even if I don't know her name."
"Your argument is that you are too stupid to glean the correct meaning from a simple riddle?"
I smiled and looked at every single judge sitting high above me. "My argument is that the riddle was flawed and imprecise. Alas, I'd be happy to test out if lifting my spell that split the lake would or would not crush any of the hostages I left behind starting with one of you? Or are you not confident in that horrendous stasis charm I managed to dispel on Luna by tickling her?"
— — — — —
[Start of the second task, POV 3rd person]
"Damn, he can walk on water?"
"Probably some kind of footholds at exactly waterlevel."
"Don't make that sound like it's nothing. Can you do that?"
The Slytherin senior scoffed but kept quiet when he heard his younger sister's question.
Near the Beauxbaton section, a brunette Ravenclaw sat with a few witches from her N.E.W.T. level courses.
"Lara, you know him best. Is this already showing off or will Talion do something more ridiculous?"
The Croft heiress merely hummed with a knowing grin.
A muggleborn from among them sat there with her mouth wide open. The Hufflepuff senior slapped Lara's arm repeatedly, her other hand pointing at the water. She briefly looked around and saw nothing of the awe she was feeling in the eyes of the other magicals around them. "T-this! This is what Jesus did! Lara! Jesus was a wizard!?"
Lara lifted an eyebrow and tilted her head. "You only just figured it out? Him and Moses were probably both wizards on the level of a professor at the very least. Talion thinks Moses used a powerful artifact to do the whole 'parting the sea' thing, though. But maybe he was simply just as powerful or even more than Professor Dumbledore."
"You talk with him about stuff like this?"
Lara gave an amused smile, elaborating calmly, "He knows I'm interested in history. Talion can be pretty insightful himself. So whatever he learned on his travels, he shared with me."
Others wanted to ask what more they talked about, but the Hufflepuff witch suddenly gasped loudly. A sound of disbelief spread through the audience.
"He… he parted the lake…"
Lara gave the display in front of them a satisfied nod. Talion hadn't minced words at all when he boasted about his 'overwhelmingly exaggerated preparation'.
"Well done," she whispered to herself as cheers rang through the crowd the moment the parted water crashed back into one, spitting out Talion with the hostages.
Both Weasley twins further down the aisles nodded sagely as Talion was gliding through the air.
"We could totally do that, too."
"Yeah, more elegantly to boot."
"Undubidoubly."
"That's not a word," Alicia Spinnet scoffed from next to one of the twins.
"Unduduboubly?"
"Indubuludy."
"Indubuludy!"
Both twins nodded again.
"You two are the dumbest wizards here, indubitably," Angelina Johnson snippingly added to the conversation.
"Gesundheit," George said absentmindedly, earning himself a pinch to the waist from his girlfriend. He used that chance to get handsy with the witch himself, just like planned.
"Now that you know, what would you have done to prepare to get me out of the freezing depths of the lake?" Alicia asked as she looked at Fred with narrowed eyes.
The redhead looked at her with doubt for a few long moments. Then, as if it was obvious, he pointed toward Talion landing on shore. "In hindsight? Obviously I would hire him to do it for me. Are you kidding me?"
George nodded sagely as if that made total sense.
Alicia and Angelina both rolled their eyes.
In the part of the stands where the professors gathered behind the judges, Flitwick was beaming with undisguised elation. Others picked up his excited clapping and the repeated whispers of 'my boy'. Sprout wasn't far behind as she shared in Talion's excessive display of magical might with utter glee.
"This is ridiculous," the astronomy professor whispered with furrowed brows. Sinistra leaned forward in her chair. She pawed her neighbor to get back her binoculars. Septima Vector reluctantly handed them back before leaning to the side.
"How many runes are you counting, Bathsheba?"
The blonde witch silently counted again as her lips moved, whispering, "Over three hundred. Three-hundred-sixty-five but maybe more under those shorts he got on."
Vector sighed in disbelief. "We tried replicating it but we came nowhere close even painting two different rune clusters without interference. How many spells was that? Five? Six?"
"Five," Babbling answered as the two watched Talion insult the judges with barely polite quips the moment the young wizard stepped in front of them. "Two reserves."
"So seven total?" Vector mumbled, a quill scribbling some notes on her lap. Her eyes were also fixed on Talion's body where the green ink had already flaked off. He still had two prominent rune groups inscribed on his shoulder and left calf.
"He is holding out on us," she added as the Arithmancy professor thought back to the dinner lectures she had with Talion and Professor Slughorn. The boy had been straightforward with some details. But it was clearer than ever, since the first task really, that the young wizard had shared the absolute minimum needed to get Slughorn off his back.
In a way, the Slytherin alumni couldn't begrudge that. It irked her anyway, but she respected it regardless.
Babbling put down her binoculars and looked at Snape at the very edge of the gathered professors. "What an idiot."
— — — — —
[Somewhere entirely else, same time]
Just a single house stood on a cliff far out of the city center overlooking the Baltic Sea. On the long white gravel road, dozens of luxurious cars were parked but except for wind, the estate was completely silent.
An hour ago, everything was lively, the guests and the owner of the property boisterous. That had stopped when a group of uninvited guests joined the party.
A white-hooded figure straightened and took out a kerchief. With efficient movement, the blood from the wristblade was wiped away, the mechanism to put the blade back was engaged to store it away.
"Was he the last one?"
The figure in the center of the large muggle estate took out a polished green glass plate. Slowly turning around on the spot, the leader of the group shook her head when she completed a circle.
"We got everyone. Gather the victims, ask questions according to protocol, then give them the powder. We'll drop them off in London as planned."
Sticking to the shadows despite the midday sun, the second member nodded and did as instructed.
The hooded figure calmly whispered, "Patrick."
A short elf popped into existence at once.
"Yes, Mistress Evert?"
"Could you let Lord Gamp know? Exactly like he suggested, that muggleborn filth was using loopholes to abduct and drug girls with charmed items and potions," Amanda pointed out as she shot a withering glare at the corpse below her.
"Master doesn't like you calling him Lord Gamp," Patrick curtly answered in a dry voice.
"But he isn't here," Amanda countered with a shrug.
Patrick nodded. Changing the subject, the elf pointed at the corpse. "He is ugly."
Amanda smiled. "Inside and out. He begged like a little miscreant, too."
"Master will want someone to rewrite his book."
"That's not for us to decide. I have no need for a charms textbook."
"Master will make you a witch like the other squip. The locket ritual worked," Patrick rebuffed as he looked around the mansion for things to loot.
"No need to look around. He only pretended to be rich. The gold is fake," Amanda advised as she followed Patrick's line of sight.
A few gaudy art pieces were scattered throughout the building and without a discerning eye, one could assume it was all high quality. But Amanda knew better after having killed her fair share of modern day slave owners under Talion's express approval.
"You don't want to do the ritual, Mistress?" Patrick asked, noticing that the leader of the assassins under his master dodged the subject. "Master will want to know why."
"Sophie can barely do household charms after a month of struggle," Amanda answered with a complicated expression. "I'm not sure becoming below average at something that my lack of resulted in me getting sold as cattle will help me get over my past."
Patrick nodded despite not understanding it at all. His master had devised a ritual that made squibs into magicals. It wasn't just a miracle even by a house elf's standards. It was an entire shift in how magic should be perceived by the world as a whole.
"This Andrews was the last one?"
Patrick nodded. "Master has no more designated targets that your group can take. You're free for justice again, Mistress Evert."
Amanda smirked but quickly dropped it. "This isn't justice?"
"All master does is just," the elf said with a menacing smile. "That is why he is master."
"Would you have said that for his grandfather?"
Patrick lost his smile, a bony finger following a scar along the gnarled thigh. One of many scars Talion's care could not help get rid of. "Master now is more worthy than old master ever was. Patrick sees nothing of the old in the new."
Amanda chose to stop pestering the scarred little blessing. Purposefully stepping on the face of the corpse she walked over to her group.
"Tell your master I'll think about the ritual."
Patrick gave a small bow and popped away with the message.
Two more assassins walked out of a room at the side. "We got only a single name and an address in Leeds."
Amanda nodded in reply. "That's good enough. Scum like this deserves to go to hell. We'll never run out of new names."
— — — — —
[Nurmengard Castle, same time]
Grindelwald watched a mirror with fascination. It didn't reflect his own gaunt visage. It showed a boy floating through the air on wings of green spellflames.
"Showmanship like that can't be taught," the exiled dark lord uttered in grim delight. "He'll have his devoted following, even if he fights it every chance he gets."
The mirror barely picked up the insults Talion slung at his once-lover.
"Hehe, what a sharp tongue," the man praised again as he tapped away with a finger.
Soon, Grindelwald narrowed his eyes in deep thought. "This form of spellcasting has too many advantages for someone as smart as that boy. A perfect match for someone so cunning and clever."
His tapping fingers suddenly finished a sequence only known to him. A sheet of parchment folded up and flew out of the window. It turned into a falcon and shot away at speeds not even nature could reproduce.
On this parchment, instructions for someone at Hogwarts were inscribed that he hadn't yet thought he needed to use.