Chapter 260: Raining Manhunt

If you want to support me check out my patréon at https://www.patréon.com/athassprkr

I tend to upload drafts of early chapters on there to get people's opinions of them so you can read up to 20 chapters ahead as a bonus.

I would like to thank my beta, Awdyr, for his help in this chapter.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

7 November 1994, Beauxbatons, France

With that done, he checked both medallions to make sure they weren't cursed or fakes.

They weren't. He picked up both medallions and put them in his pockets. That was two done, and four to go. So far things were going well, but Harry knew better than to hope that things would stay that way. After all, with Dumbledore involved, things rarely were so simple.

Harry quickly analysed his position. He had the British, Greek and Spanish medallions. He needed one from a Roman Champion, one from a Durmstrang Champion, one from a Nebelheim Champion, and one from a Champion of Beauxbatons.

The faster he was, the easier things would be. It sounded like a paradox, but whoever designed this task had obviously wanted it to last days at the very least, maybe even a couple of weeks. By taking into account the task's conditions, it acted more like a survival game than a race…

The organizers either had to deliver clues to the champions so that they could find the finish line, giving them total control over the task, or the champions literally had to fight through every single competitor and win to find the finish line, which would also make the task exciting, even if it was unlikely; the forest was vast enough and they were far away enough from each other, that it was unlikely that all Champions would meet each other frequently. All in all, they were going for the excitement and pacing of a Quidditch Match, while maintaining full control over the action. No, it was better to say that they controlled the narrative. They were going for drama, making the champions go through challenges to make a story out of it.

It was clever. It was a modernization of the Tri-Wizard tournament, which was essentially a glorified gladiator match in a time that had different moral values. Now, in a time where society was different, the tournament itself was structured differently, making the people see what they already knew they enjoyed. It was quite brilliant from a marketing standpoint.

No wonder Dumbledore was so confident; Harry was literally stepping inside his territory.

It was a race, alright. It was a race against time, against taking the medallions quickly enough that the organizers wouldn't be able to deploy all the other challenges without seeming unreasonable.

To be fair, they couldn't really anticipate someone like Harry.

While it was relatively known that he was a powerful young wizard, a prodigy even, no one truly knew what Harry was capable of. When people think of magical prodigies, they think of immense forms of magic, not the efficiency that Harry liked to display.

Harry heard the clouds rumble. They had come out of nowhere… It was safe to assume that it was artificial. Hmmm, it looked like they were probably going to activate the first challenge. A little early in Harry's opinion, but it seemed like they didn't expect someone to be a third of the way there in less than an hour. He needed to hurry up and find his next targets quicker.

He ran forward, each step warped subtly to make him faster. It took less than a quarter of an hour to see his next target. Three Roman students were in a camp, conjuring and transfiguring a shelter for the obvious rain that would come. He expected the remaining two to be scouting along to make sure that they were alone or looking to ambush any other students.

Harry walked towards the camp and analysed his chances. Unlike the Spanish Champions, they had put up some wards around their camp. It was actually quite impressive for a student. One of them was surely going to be picked up for an apprenticeship for this skill. The wards were based on battle wards, which were often taught to Aurors and Hit Wizards to allow them to ward an area that did not belong to them. This wasn't as effective as actual home wards, but they could change the tide of battle if they were ambushed, especially by inexperienced opponents.

No wonder they felt confident enough to work on their shelter…

The sad thing was it meant that he couldn't be as stealthy as he wanted to be. He couldn't do to them what he did to the Spanish delegation, taking a medallion while they were unaware. The moment a spell is cast in the wards, they would know. Harry could easily break the wards, but that would alert them as well.

Harry hummed, he needed to plan this very accurately.

First, he needed intel. And thankfully, he could easily sneak past the ward. Slowly, he used his Arcane Hearing to alter the magic that was around him, making him essentially invisible magically. It wouldn't work on any kind of soul detection or even advanced magic as his cloak did, but for this, it would be more than enough.

He slowly snuck into camp and decided to listen to them. The biggest problem was whoever put up the ward. He was the one he needed to take out first. The rest would follow easily enough. Huh, now how to know who the warder was…

Harry exited the ward and conjured a wolf. He walked back inside and commanded the wolf to try to enter…

Immediately, one of the champions, a boy with olive-coloured skin, stiffened, "Something is trying to get in here…"

Harry's Italian was rusty. He had learned it when he was bored as a child since he already knew a couple of other languages that originated from Latin. But, it was more than enough to understand them.

The three Champions immediately donned their armours, which they had probably transfigured and enchanted themselves, and grabbed their swords and wands, moving in a formation towards the direction of the wolf.

Harry grinned slightly. So, that was the warder identified. Now, for the rest of the takedown. He elegantly carved small runes near the areas where they were sitting, as he commanded the wolf to lead them around.

They all came back around twenty minutes later, looking frustrated, "I can't believe that you made us chase a wolf for almost half an hour."

The warder looked indignant, "The damn thing shouldn't have even come close. I had a ward set up that stopped wildlife from noticing us. The Wolf shouldn't have even noticed our camp. The beast was probably magically resistant or something. It could have easily been an intruder."

"Or maybe you aren't as good as you think you are… What do you think the public are thinking after your little fuck up?"

The warder growled but did not respond. The smirking boy spoke up, "I can't wait for Romeo to hear about this… He should come back sometime soon. Do you think he'll have any luck hunting down the brat…"

The two other boys shushed him, "We're not supposed to talk about it…"

"Relax, stuff like this was very common in the Tri-Wizard tournament. It's practically a tradition to hunt down a specific opponent. Did anyone give you any rules about making alliances and targeting people? I wouldn't even be surprised if other champions are hunting him down. The bounty wasn't really that discreet."

"But why him? It's a lot of gold for a kid. I know he's supposedly a prodigy and stuff, but the kid is barely fourteen. I wouldn't be surprised if he accidentally took himself out. Jupiter knows that I wouldn't have lasted young in the wild at his age. Why did his headmistress even let him compete?"

The larger boy shook his head, "I don't care, the gold is more than enough…"

"It just feels wrong. Dishonourable… Centurions wouldn't…"

The other boy interrupted him, "Honestly, man. Stop lying to yourself. That's just sad. If you think for one second that Centurions wouldn't have carved a random boy for a bit of gold, then you're delusional."

Huh, so someone had put a bounty on him. Harry could say that he was surprised, not at the behaviour, but by the fact that it was so unsubtle, it wasn't even funny. To be fair, being in a forest with forty-four other teenagers hunting him down should have technically made things difficult.

Was Dumbledore losing his edge or something? Or was it someone else?

To be fair, Harry could have technically been taken by surprise if one of his fellow Hogwarts champions attacked him from the back. Well, not really; Harry's Arcane Hearing would have helped him see this coming, and he would have dealt with it.

Anyway, it didn't matter; Harry had left the other Hogwarts Champions behind. The three Romans had charged up the hidden runes with their own magics, making them invisible to the wards. Harry simply activated them, knocking them unconscious.

He snickered, "I would have said that it wasn't personal, but you were kinda hunting me down…"

He noticed that they didn't have their medallions on them, and it took a frustrating five minutes to track them down. They had buried them near a tree. A somewhat clever tactic, since they couldn't easily be taken from them if they were knocked unconscious. Those three were definitely trained martially, at least in terms of tactics. Harry understood now what Blaise had meant when he said that it was essentially a military academy.

He grabbed all five medallions – the scouts must not have taken theirs with them so that they couldn't be stolen – and altered the wards slightly to leave a gift for the returning champions, before running towards the nearest living being. After all, he was halfway done with the task…

It started raining then and quickly turned into a real downpour. The rain came down heavy and fast, with large drops that hit the dark, muddy ground hard, causing little splashes of mud everywhere. The trees in the forest swayed and creaked loudly under the force of the howling wind, bending as though they might snap at any moment.

Every so often, lightning flashed across the sky in bright, jagged streaks, lighting up the underbrush and casting eerie, shifting shadows that seemed almost alive. The thunder followed, booming loudly, its deep rumble echoing through the dense forest and reverberating around Harry. It was so loud and persistent that it made it difficult for Harry to use his Arcane Hearing effectively, as the continuous roar drowned out any subtler sounds he might have detected.

Still, he had picked up a few signals and followed their general directions. They were further away than he expected. That storm really was annoying to deal with.

Suddenly, Harry felt something ping his Arcane Hearing. Despite the deafening storm, he could still hear it, a powerful presence quickly approaching his location. It was fast, very fast, and the closer it got, the stronger the rain became.

Harry quickly dodged as the presence came at him, quicker than the normal eye could see. He felt a giant torrent of water come out of nowhere trying to drown him, which he shielded against.

He quickly made the shield pulse outward, taking whatever it was by surprise and stopping its concentration. Harry discreetly slowed time for himself, allowing him to see the beast in front of him for the first time.

Towering above him was a colossal reptilian creature, lanky yet imposing, with its height probably being higher than that of a giant. Its skin was a slick, iridescent green, shimmering wetly in the dim light filtered through the storm clouds. The most unsettling feature was its face, or rather faces, as it possessed two sets of eyes, each set stacked atop the other in a chilling, symmetrical pattern.

It was walking on two legs, well, two claws, while the two others sat idly by its side, in a disturbingly humanoid manner.

The eyes glowed with a haunting, luminescent quality, piercing through the rain as they fixed on him. Harry had never seen anything like it before, not even in any book.

He could feel the beast assessing him, before moving without any sort of prompting. Its limbs unfolded in an almost fluid manner, and it ran faster than a creature its size had any right to be.

Harry could feel a slice of water coming at him, which he dissipated quickly, before dodging another lunge from the beast.

Damn, he hadn't expected Beauxbatons to put something like this in the tournament. To be fair, it was probably a form of their trump card, a way to stop someone from ruining the task so that the narrative would be back to what they had planned. That's not to mention the fact that Dumbledore was most likely involved as well…

It was corruption at its finest, but Harry had dealt with worse. At least that supported his theory about the task…

Despite all of this, the last Potter could feel himself grinning in excitement, "At least this isn't going to be boring."

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

If you want to support me check out my patréon at https://www.patréon.com/athassprkr

I tend to upload drafts of early chapters on there to get people's opinions of them so you can read up to 20 chapters ahead as a bonus.

Thank you guys for your support in these hard times.