After finishing his teaching duties in the final week before the tournament, Tver found himself with a rare moment of leisure.
Unlike Harry, who was working himself to the bone practicing magic, and the other three Champions, who were all feeling varying degrees of tension, Tver planned to spend the entire day in his office digesting the Gubraithian Fire Dumbledore had taught him the night before.
He watched the beautiful flame flickering in his palm and nodded in satisfaction.
This was the result of a full night and day of study.
On the surface, the flame looked like nothing more than an ordinary red-and-gold fire. Its temperature wasn't especially high, and its destructive power seemed no different from normal flames.
But Tver knew that unless he chose to extinguish it himself, this wisp of fire could burn until the end of the world.
It was completely different from Fiendfyre. Fiendfyre was far more destructive, but notoriously difficult to control.
Even though Tver had already mastered it, he still didn't dare cast it on an enormous scale.
At that level, it wouldn't behave like Protego Diabolica, which surrounded the caster and could be controlled with relative ease.
Instead, it would instantly sweep across everything within sight. Unless he had a supercomputer installed in his brain, there was no way he could precisely distinguish friend from foe.
(Simply put, when Grindelwald cast Protego Diabolica in a small square, he could control it. But if the final fire dragon had truly crashed into Paris, there would've been no controlling it.)
Gubraithian Fire, on the other hand, was different. Though slightly less powerful, it offered far superior control. Even when cast on a massive scale, Tver could easily avoid harming anyone he didn't wish to hurt.
If he split Protego Diabolica into two versions, he would effectively gain a large-scale attack spell he could use freely.
But before that, he needed to fully master Gubraithian Fire.
Tver closed his fingers, and the flame vanished within his fist.
After less than a day of practice, he had only managed to summon it. To expand its scale or enhance its power, he would need much more time.
Not tonight.
As the darkness outside the window deepened, Tver finished the pumpkin juice in his cup and strode out of his office.
Earlier that evening, Hagrid had come specifically to ask him to visit the hut at midnight.
Tver already had a vague idea of what Hagrid was planning, but he didn't want to disappoint him.
At Tver's suggestion, Hagrid's current lesson plans were now largely the result of discussions with Professor Kettleburn.
The two actually shared similar tastes in teaching. Both enjoyed bringing rather dangerous creatures into the classroom.
The only difference was that Professor Kettleburn usually took the injuries himself, whereas Hagrid's lessons tended to leave the students injured.
Now, not only Hagrid but even the students were grateful for Tver's advice.
Because it meant they no longer had to rack their brains figuring out how to raise Blast-Ended Skrewts…
Meanwhile, a few Durmstrang students, after sitting in on several of Hagrid's classes, had inexplicably developed a fondness for these odd creatures.
Rumor had it some of them had already placed orders with Hagrid, asking to take a few baby Blast-Ended Skrewts back with them when they left Hogwarts at the end of the next school year.
Apparently, they wanted to see whether the creatures could bring a bit of warmth and excitement to the frozen north.
Under cover of night, Tver walked openly along the path to Hagrid's hut without even bothering to cast a Disillusionment Charm.
After all, he wasn't some student sneaking out for a midnight stroll.
"Isn't that right, Harry?"
"Huh?" Harry's startled voice sounded from the empty air beside him.
"I mean, if you want to roam around at night safely, you'd better stay away from powerful wizards."
Tver's gaze seemed to pierce straight through the Invisibility Cloak as he reached out and patted Harry on the head.
"To me, that Cloak is just an ordinary piece of clothing. The magical feedback from your body shines in the dark like a firefly."
Harry flushed bright red. He hurriedly pulled back the Invisibility Cloak, not removing it entirely, but just enough to reveal his head.
After all, being caught by Professor Fawley would be one thing. But if anyone else saw him sneaking around at night, even as a Champion he'd still end up in detention.
"So Professor Moody's eye is that sharp too? He spotted me in Hogsmeade today."
"Oh? You ran into him today?" Tver asked, intrigued.
"Yeah. He was chatting and drinking with Hagrid at the Three Broomsticks. Of course, he was drinking from his own bottle."
So Hagrid's last-minute decision to bring Harry to see the dragons was probably prompted by that reminder.
Tver wasn't trying to say Hagrid didn't care about Harry. It was just that without someone nudging him, Hagrid might genuinely be slow enough not to realize Harry needed a bit of help…
They soon reached Hagrid's cabin.
"What took you so long?"
Hagrid was wearing, well… proper formal dress robes, with a lovely flower pinned to his chest.
Harry stole a glance at Tver and didn't dare admit they'd lost time chatting.
"What did you want us for? You do know Harry's still a student and isn't allowed to leave the castle at night, right?" Tver reminded him.
Harry gave an awkward little laugh. He'd practically stopped treating that rule as a rule.
But Hagrid nervously swept his gaze toward the brightly lit Beauxbatons carriage.
"Don't talk. Just come with me and you'll see," he said, making a shushing gesture. Then he looked the two of them over. "Tver, I need you to go invisible. That… what's it called… that spell. And Harry, you keep that Invisibility Cloak on properly."
Since they'd already decided to come, Tver casually cast a Disillusionment Charm over himself.
"That's so useful, Professor. Can you teach me?" Harry whispered in awe as Tver's body blended perfectly into the night.
"Oh? So you can sneak around the castle even better at night?"
Tver's voice drifted ahead with Hagrid's footsteps, and Harry hurried after them, mortified.
Tver's tone was so friendly, almost like a friend teasing him, that Harry nearly forgot he was talking to a professor.
"It's not that I can't teach you," Tver went on, "but your priority right now should be what's in the textbooks. Otherwise your foundation won't be enough to keep up with the Disillusionment Charm."
Disillusionment Charm.
Harry repeated it to himself to make sure he'd memorized it, ready to ask when he could learn it—
And then he realized Hagrid had brought them straight to the Beauxbatons carriage.
He stared in shock as Madam Maxime stepped down, her arm linked with Hagrid's.
"What… what's going on?" he blurted.
"That," Tver said, tugging the stunned boy along, "is love."
They followed Hagrid toward the Forbidden Forest.
Listening to Hagrid and Madam Maxime trading syrupy, overly affectionate lines, even Tver found himself getting goosebumps.
Two half-giants finding someone like themselves in the wizarding world didn't happen often. The burst of excitement between them was… a lot.
Thankfully, a sudden commotion up ahead pulled everyone's attention forward.
Seven or eight burly wizards stood around a pen made from thick wooden boards. In the center stood a creature that made Harry's heart pound.
A dragon.
And there were five pens in total.
That meant five vicious-looking dragons, all roaring and spitting fire in every direction.
The dragon handlers in each pen were doing their best to suppress the dragons' fury, but it only got worse. The lack of freedom only fed their rage.
"No good, the usual methods aren't working!" one handler outside the pen shouted to the others. "On three, everyone casts the Stunning Spell together!"
"One, two, three!"
"Stupefy!" *37
More than thirty dragon handlers drew their wands at once, still landing their Stunning Spells with precision despite the dragons' rampage.
After taking seven or eight heavy Stunning Spells, even a dragon's formidable magical resistance couldn't hold. With a pained howl, it swayed and slowly collapsed, hitting the ground with a deafening crash.
"I was wondering when you'd get here, Hagrid." Charlie Weasley, the second son of the Weasley family, stepped out from the pen.
He'd been the one giving the orders.
"I wasn't going to miss a sight like this," Hagrid said. "So what kinds have you got here?"
"All sorts!" Charlie lit up immediately—this was his territory.
"That mean-looking one's the Hungarian Horntail. The smallest is a Common Welsh Green. The silver-blue one is a Swedish Short-Snout. The one with the lion-like nose is a Chinese Fireball, also called a Liondragon. It was shipped over from there. You don't get to see one of those in Europe every day."
"And this big one," Charlie said, pointing to a black dragon that was nearly half again as large as the others, "that's the Hebridean Black Dragon!"
"Dumbledore specially borrowed it from the MacFusty Clan. Said he wanted a certain especially powerful Champion to suffer a bit!"
Tver: [・_・?]
...
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