Chapter 284: Distorting Influence

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

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21 November 1994, Rome, Italy

Fleur expected this to be her last thought… She expected the world to turn dark… However, she was baffled when the world turned a blinding white instead. What the fuck had just happened?

Her answer came quickly enough as the Griffin froze just inches away from her. What was peculiar was the fact that its eyes were glowing white. She struggled to get up, but she managed to do it quickly enough. She turned and looked around to find out what had happened and saw that Eloise Fontaine's eyes were glowing the same colour.

The witch slowly walked towards the beast and grabbed the key around its neck. If no one had tried to attack their camp, Beauxbatons had just gained two extra Champions, meaning that they held a very real numerical advantage.

She turned towards Eloise, wincing with every step she took, "Thank you."

"You're welcome," the other girl simply responded.

"So, the rumours are true. You do have a family crest."

She nodded, "My family agreed to let me use it during the tournament. I didn't really get to do it before… It's not that handy during duelling, but it would have probably been handy if we had done the first task the proper way. Still, as you know, that didn't happen. So, what now?"

The Veela responded, "Well, the Spanish are out… Hogwarts, Nebelheim, and Olympus are at the other side of the arena, under some kind of mist. Durmstrang and the Romans were fighting each other near us, and considering the use of bait, one of them must have won. I'm personally thinking the Romans…"

"So, do we go back to camp to regroup and plan an attack?"

"We probably should," Fleur hummed, "Eloise, how good is your control over the Griffin?"

"Pretty good, if I say so myself. You're not seriously planning on attacking them with just the two of us?"

"Well, think about it. If we leave now, we run the risk of being ambushed by them. Their plan was to use blood to make the Griffin attack the Spanish. Either the Spanish would have won, or the Griffin would have beaten them. Either way, the Romans would either want to beat the Griffin and get the key or defeat the remaining Spanish champions whose numbers were probably going to be reduced. So, if they're coming here either way…"

The Fontaine scion grinned, "We can set a trap."

"We don't even have to beat all of them, just a few of them to lower their numbers… Most of the magical creatures have been defeated already. There's just the Minotaur near the other side of the arena, and the Nemean Lion… I think they must have put that creature in as a joke or something since beating one is almost impossible."

She was right, of course. Nemean Lions were creatures of legend. They were bred by someone back in Ancient Greece. They still had no idea how someone had managed to do this. The creature's hide wasn't magically resistant but actively repelled any signs of magic, that's not to mention the fact that it was also immune to physical damage… There were attempts at replicating the effects, but the very nature of its hide meant that it couldn't be analysed using magic.

Defeating a Nemean Lion wasn't impossible, but it required an insane amount of preparation and planning. You needed to create a trap that could somehow bind it in place, like unbreakable chains that would stop it from moving – and that was already difficult because of its frankly insane strength – and then keep it bound until it starved to death. And even then, if you wanted the hide, you had to wait for the corpse to rot off.

Asking students to defeat one was about as reasonable as telling them to fight a dragon…

So, that meant that there was only one beast in real play, and the worst-case scenario was for Hogwarts to get it and Harry to enter the arena. She hadn't seen a lot of the Nebelheim fight, so she couldn't really say much about what they could do if they beat it. But the Olympians, on the other hand, would probably add another elemental specialist to their midst, which was dangerous. Their main advantage now was their numbers, and they needed to use that.

So, the Romans, then Hogwarts, then Olympus…

Eloise smiled in approval of her plan, and they got to work. She got the Griffin to visibly fly in the air, around the Spanish camp, making it seem like it had beat them, meanwhile, they had put a few obscuring charms up to hide from any detection charms. They weren't foolproof, but considering the fact that the Romans specialized in battle spells, they would probably do…

Exactly as she planned, a group of four Romans entered in formation. The two in front were holding their physical shields, while the two others were trying to scout ahead and identify any threats. They entered the camp warily, and Fleur took the initiative by actively using her allure.

Normally, she wouldn't have done this… She disliked using her heritage to her advantage. It reminded her of how her father used her mother's charm against his political opponents.

The allure did its job as it distracted the Romans, and even when they tried to fight it off, it broke their formation. Of course, that was when Eloise commanded the Griffin to fly down at great speeds and attack them. In the chaos, Fleur followed up with a few spells of her own at their backs, eliminating two of them. She left the Griffin to deal with the other two in the meantime.

She quickly grabbed Eloise and ran away from the former camp. After having walked a sufficient distance, the Veela groaned, "So, how did we do?"

"The Griffin was defeated, and he took one of them with him. You got two others. There's only one Roman left. Should we go after him?"

"No, their greatest strength was their teamwork. Just one of them is not enough of a threat. It's better that we regroup with the others. The situation might have shifted, and it'll be better if I use my scrying spell again to figure out what to do next."

They quickly ran towards their teammates and saw Arthur Laurant standing with two new teammates, Francois Moreau, and Celine Bernard, who had also participated in the previous task with her. They didn't get the chance to show it in Beauxbatons, but she knew that they were some of the best duellists in their school. Personally, Fleur would have picked one of them and followed up with some kind of curse-breaker specialist, but Madame Maxime knew what she was doing, especially since she had more information than her regarding how the task was progressing.

She gave them a nod and spoke up, "Moreau, Bernard, any news or tactics from Madame Maxime?"

"Well, since Durmstrang and Nebelheim are gone and you took care of the Spanish, she told me to focus on the Romans, then the Olympians…" the boy retorted.

"What about the Minotaur?"

"The Olympians took care of it… The Nemean Lion is the only beast left and I'm not risking going after it. So, yeah, there's no risk of Potter ruining this task for us. Tactically, the Romans are the bigger risk if only because of their numbers."

Eloise snorted, "Not anymore. We took care of three of them. There's only one left."

"So, Olympus then? How many of them are left?"

Celine answered passively, "Three. I was the last one to come here and they were just bringing in their third one."

"What about the mist?"

"An illusion. It's a very elaborate one, but wind magic didn't do much to clear it up. I can counter it easily enough. It's still very impressive, all things considered. I didn't really recognize the spell."

Arthur retorted, "I don't think you'll have to… I think the new Olympian figured it out."

The Veela looked at the other side of the arena and saw the mist slowly dissipate into a faint light. They all ran towards the Greeks and saw them trying to attack the two remaining Hogwarts Champions. The boy tried to shield the girl but ended up being eliminated.

Deciding to use their distraction, Fleur motioned to sneakily attack the Olympians from behind. They managed to get two of them by surprise, but the third one summoned a bolt of lightning at them. Celine conjured a lightning rod, shielding them, but she was knocked unconscious by the process somehow.

Still, this was enough for them to eliminate the last Olympians.

That left only the girl from Hogwarts, who had disappeared in the middle of the chaos, and the last Roman. The centurion showed himself when he tried to ambush them. To be perfectly fair, it was his only real option. Fighting the Nemean Lion was beyond foolish, and he wasn't going to get a better chance at attacking them than this.

He actually managed to eliminate Eloise before being overwhelmed by the three remaining Beauxbatons Champions.

So, that left the three of them against the Hogwarts girl. To be perfectly honest, no one really expected Hogwarts to reach this point without Harry participating. However, the girl had managed to somehow crawl into second place without any issues.

They found her just a few yards away, being attacked by the Nemean Lion. Fleur decided not to risk it being a trap and told the others to wait the fight out. The girl was doing surprisingly well against the mythical beast and her hand started to glow. Suddenly, the Lion was stopped in its tracks for a fraction of a second and some kind of earth magic then sent the beast tumbling away… No, not away, towards them…

Fleur, out of pure instinct, overpowered a digging spell and created a large crater in the ground that the lion landed in. The idea came to her in less than a fraction of a second and the Hogwarts girl would have won if it hadn't been for that impulse decision.

The Nemean Lion was momentarily trapped, and the three of them walked towards the limping girl who looked strangely resigned, "I almost thought I was going to do it…"

"Did you really try to bait a Nemean Lion to attack you just to make a trap? That's beyond stupid!"

"Look, I'm two years younger than you, and there are three of you… I thought either I'd get eliminated, beat the Lion and get some backup, or redirect it towards you as a distraction."

Arthur snorted, "You seriously thought you could beat a Nemean Lion?"

"Potter taught us to attack the inside of the mouth of creatures with resistant hides and scales. Said that it was the most effective way to get spells to affect them. The damn thing was too smart to open its mouth for too long, and immediately realized what I was trying to do."

"Harry trained you?"

The girl gave her a smirk, "Harry, is it? Well, he trained the three of us for a few days… I really should have trusted his judgement more."

"How is that?" Fleur asked, curious and a little embarrassed.

"Well, you see, this plan was entirely made by Potter. The fog, the earth spells, everything… Don't get me wrong, he never planned on competing, but that didn't mean that he wasn't going to win. He predicted who would go after the beasts and who would go after us. He was wrong about Durmstrang going after us, though… But he was bang on about the rest."

"And what's his master plan for this?" Francois snarked back.

The girl simply shrugged, "He said to do my best."

"Fleur, let's just stop talking… She's obviously stalling and throwing Potter's name around to make us scared. Let's just get this over with."

The Veela nodded and attacked the British girl who was barely able to use something to send Arthur flying back – probably with a family crest of some sort – before being overwhelmed by the combined efforts of Fleur and Francois.

Right as she was falling, disarmed, and with half her body petrified, the girl smiled faintly, "He also told me that the moment you all entered my mist, I would win."

Just as the girl was falling unconscious, Fleur felt her own body freeze up. She heard Francois also yell out behind her. And after that, there was only darkness…

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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.