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The Serpent's Gaze, Book Four: Betting On Blood	By : DictionaryWrites Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male Views: 3021 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: The world of Harry Potter and the characters therein belong to JK Rowling; I'm playing in the sandbox, as it were, whilst claiming no ownership and making no money.

Chapter List
- 13
- 14
- 15
The offices of Wizard's Staff are located in Cardiff's Royal Arcade, where a turn in the arcade's corridor leads to an unassuming looking door without a doorknob. Harry had watched with interest as the Wizard's Staff editor had drawn the tip of his wand over the wood, ushering all of them through once a doorknob had appeared, offered a greeting in Welsh, and allowed them inside. They're currently in a large, glass-ceilinged studio, spread all around, and Harry sits on the edge of a desk beside the editor.
"How old are you again?" Victor Langley asks. Harry grins at him as he looks over the room. Fleur is dressed in a periwinkle set of delicate, lacy dressrobes, and she poses with her head held high and her hair loose on her shoulder. She looks beautiful, and she laughs when the camera flashes so that it records the animation of her features.. Cedric is talking animatedly with a pretty reporter with a glossy black bob, and Viktor occasionally adds to the conversation, mostly remaining quiet.
"Fourteen," Harry answers. Langley had met their party at the Hogwarts gate when Harry had Flooed him to offer the interview, and he'd been surprised that the whole thing had been so... Well, so easy.
"And you got all this for a little revenge?"
"Not just revenge," Harry answers. Victor Langley has been the editor of Wizard's Staff for six years, and when Harry had Flooed his office that morning, he had spoken to him personally, ecstatic to be offered an opportunity to interview and photograph each of the Triwizard Champions. Fleur is posing in three different sets of dress robes, and each interview is set to be longer than the Daily Prophet ones had been, taking up a six page spread in the magazine. Harry is pretty certain three of those are just going to be pictures of Fleur, but he doesn't mind, and Fleur looks very pleased about the arrangement. "She gets to keep the robes, right?" Langley chuckles.
"You didn't engineer this so the French girl could get some new clothes."
"I don't like Skeeter," Harry says frankly, shrugging his shoulders. "I'm not ashamed to admit it, Mr Langley." Langley's lips twitch. He's a tall, dark-skinned man with green eyes and a silver ring through his lower lip, and he's exactly what Harry hadn't expected as the editor of a wizard's magazine. Harry had made his offer plainly: an exclusive interview from Harry Potter, as well as interviews and photographs of the other Triwizard Champions, and the others had been more than willing to do it.
They're each being paid a hundred and fifty Galleons, and Fleur is getting three new sets of robes on top of the deal, so Harry thinks he's negotiated their cause quite well. Talking quietly and seriously to the side of the room, Karkaroff and Maxime are having some kind of argument, but it's all in French, and Harry doesn't even try to understand it - he expects it's about Viktor, who Karkaroff had tried to stop coming. Viktor had grimly insisted he would come, thank you, Headmaster, and while he doesn't really look happy to be here, he doesn't look happy to be anywhere.
"I won't complain," Langley says. "I've obviously won here. How are you feeling about your odds?"
"My odds?" Harry asks, arching an eyebrow. "What do you mean?"
"Well, the goblins seem to have faith in you, but a lot of the wizard betting agencies are betting on you to die in the Tournament." Harry laughs. Langley is studying his face intently, whether to glean what bet he should make or just to see his reaction, Harry isn't certain.
"I'll tell my godfather to put a few Galleons on me to snuff it," Harry says, for some reason finding the idea funny. "I didn't really want to do this, to be honest, but I'm gonna do my best not to die."
"Always a good plan," Langley says approvingly, with a small nod of his head, and he reaches for a pad and paper, setting a quill to run over the page as he looks at Harry expectantly. "Now, Mr Potter," he says, voice utterly changing in its level of professionalism and taking on an almost fruity tone, "How does it feel to be the youngest competitor in a competition that's killed dozens of its players?"
"A bit daunting, to be honest," Harry says, watching the quill slide over the page, "but I'm pretty sure V- er, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, isn't going to be one of the tasks, so you could say it's looking up for me." Langley lets out a quiet, slightly nervous little laugh, looking appreciative at Harry's not saying Voldemort's real name. Or- well, actually, it isn't his real name, is it? Harry frowns slightly, suddenly distracted by the idea: he'd never spared it any thought, but Voldemort an't possibly be the actual man's name.
"Mr Potter?" Harry glances back to Langley. Langley's eyes are focused on his face, a slight concern obvious, and Harry shakes his head slightly, trying to make himself concentrate.
"Oh, sorry, I got distracted for a second there. Could you say the question again?"
"Do you think you'll win the competition, you and Cedric Diggory?" Langley repeats. Harry glances around the room: Viktor is now posing for photographs instead of Fleur, wearing a set of violet Quidditch robes embroidered with Hickory's Quidditch Gear on the breast, and Fleur and Cedric are standing behind the photographer, peering at Viktor as he's photographed in one stern, dramatic pose after another.
"Yeah," Harry decides, as Cedric laughs at something Fleur whispers in his ear. "Yeah, you know what? I think we will. We will."
---
"Get your posters here!" George says, clapping his hands together. "Slytherin heart throb, Harry Potter, blown up to grin on your walls - and with the sexiest snack box over his snack box!" Harry laughs as he holds the poster Fred had blown up from the Wizard's Staff article: it had only taken up a quarter of the page, as well as pictures of Cedric and Viktor, but it's the size of a normal poster now. The poster Harry laughs as he shakes the Skiving Snackbox in his hands, and although Harry had elected not to do the photoshoot without his clothes on, George is set on his method of salesmanship.
It wouldn't be so bad, except that people are actually buying them. George is selling them at ten Sickles apiece, and he's already got twenty Galleons or so: Cedric laughs when George offers him one, and buys two, the bastard.
"It's good that you two get on," Hermione says lightly as they sit in the library that afternoon. Harry has spent about twenty minutes arguing his case to Irma Pince to be allowed a book on one of the upper shelves of the library: it's not in the Restricted Section, but it's considered semi-restricted, and she'd been reluctant to hand it over until he'd said that if he died in the Triwizard Tournament, he'd know who to tell his godfather to blame.
She'd looked horrified at the comment, and had just stormed off - Harry thinks he'll send her something as an apology, as she had looked really upset, but at least he has his book now.
"Me and Cedric?" Harry asks, glancing over the title page of his book. Ensnaring The Mind is about different sorts of mind-based magics, including Occlumency and Legilimency, but it covers much of the theory: how magic can be used to strengthen the mind, and why it's been used that way over the years. All of the books on practical mind magic are in the Restricted Section, but Harry already has most of the texts he needs in his room.
"Yeah," Hermione says, "are you listening to me?" Harry closes the book shut, pushing it away and looking at Hermione properly with a mildly mocking expression on his face, and she kicks him under the table. He laughs, and he sits back in his chair. Across the room, he can see Viktor Krum with his curved nose in a book, flanked by a dozen girls who keep whispering over him, though not loud enough for Pince to chuck them out. "He's there again, isn't he?"
"Yeah," Harry says, arching an eyebrow. He leans forwards, waving to the other Champion, and Viktor seems pleased to have been invited over; he shifts forwards, and Harry murmurs a quiet spell under his breath as the girls come towards them. "Hey," he hisses to his Conjured three snakes, "I'll give you lots of rats if you chase those girls away." The snakes titter, and quickly make their way off, slithering past Viktor as he sits with them and making the girls scream and yell as they run out of the library. Harry recognizes Romilda Vane leading the group and suppresses a tut of noise, shaking his head. "You okay, Viktor?"
"What was that?" he demands, nodding to the snakes.
"Oh," Harry says. "Guess you wouldn't know." It's odd: he's become so used, over the years, to any given stranger being aware of random facts about him, and speaking to Krum is a welcome change.
"Harry's a Parselmouth," Hermione says quietly, and Viktor turns to look at her seriously. Despite his eternally grim expression, he seems a little softer than usual, and Harry's lips twitch as Hermione meets Viktor's gaze.
"Viktor," Harry says, "this is my friend, Hermione. She's pretty, huh?" Hermione looks ready to snap at him, but she goes quiet when the Quidditch player responds.
"Da," Viktor agrees absently, and then whips his head to the side to stare at Harry as Hermione stifles a quiet chuckle.
"Thanks, Harry," Hermione says. "It's nice to meet you, Viktor."
"And you- Hermy-own...?"
"Her-My-Oh-Knee," Hermione says, and although she speaks quietly, she enunciates each syllable. As she does so, Harry sees Krum's lips move as he follows the pronunciation, and he pulls his book towards himself as Hermione and Viktor begin to talk about what Hermione's studying.
Hermione's way too distracted to admonish him for smirking at her. As he reads, his head begins to twinge now and then, but he doesn't let on as to what's happening, and tries to focus on his book.
---
Harry waits outside of Snape's office, leaning on the wall with his hands shoved into his pockets. His head is beginning to feel like it's been split down the middle with a meat cleaver, and he closes his eyes tightly, gritting his teeth. The pain had slowly worsened over the past hour or so, and he's beginning to feel slightly dizzy with it - far too dizzy to make the trek up to McGonagall's office or Dumbledore's. He's already knocked, and he can hear sounds from inside, but Snape hasn't told him to come in yet, and Harry knows better than to walk in uninvited.
"Come in!" comes a lyrical, amused voice, and Harry frowns a little as he reaches for the door handle, turning it. At his desk, Snape is resolutely ignoring his two guests: artfully arranged in two chairs are Narcissa Malfoy and Andromeda Tonks. Sat together as they are, Harry can see that they're sisters - Narcissa's eyes are a deep blue rather than brown, but they have the same heavy lids, and he can see the similarities in the curves of their jaws and their mouths.
"Hi, Dromeda," Harry says. "Mrs Malfoy."
"What do you want?" Snape demands before Harry can say anything, and Harry closes the door quietly behind him. Andromeda and Narcissa are just wearing fairly normal robes, and although Andromeda has a Muggle plastic bag in her lap, it's not really enough for him to figure out why the two of them are here. Harry hesitates for a moment nonetheless, wondering if he's interrupting something, but then he looks to Snape. He sways just slightly on his feet, but he tries to keep himself in place.
"My scar hurts. Dumbledore said to tell you if my scar was hurting." He doesn't hold back the words with Andromeda and Narcissa there - the both of them are in the Order, and while he doesn't know why they're here to see Snape, he knows that he trusts the both of them.
"He told you to inform me specifically?" Snape prompts with a sneer, and Harry has to stop himself from rolling his eyes.
He can't stop himself from dryly replying, "Not specifically, sir, but you always make me feel so safe and well looked-after, given your nurturing nature."
"Twenty points from Slytherin," Snape says as Andromeda lets out a loud belly-laugh and Narcissa stifles her snort of laughter half into her hand and half into her sister's shoulder. Even if Harry hadn't said anything, he has no doubt his Head of House would have done so out of habit. "Sit down." The two lone visitor's chairs are occupied by Snape's existing visitors, so Harry sits on the edge of a side table. Snape, very slowly, looks away from the parchment on his desk and stares Harry down.
Harry resolutely stares back.
"Is he always like this with you?" Dromeda asks, sounding proud and slightly incredulous. Where Narcissa sits straight-backed, her hands neatly on her knees, she kicks back in her chair, one ankle crossed over the other, and she grins between Harry and Snape. "I always thought they were all scared of you, Severus."
"The intelligent ones are," Snape replies in an icy tone, and Harry lets out a curse as the table snaps at left leg, sending Harry and a stack old old textbooks tumbling to the floor. He pulls himself up, piling up the copies of Advanced Potion-Making, and mutters a Reparo under his breath. The damaged leg draws itself back together, and this time Harry sits down on the damned dungeon floor, crossing his arms over his chest. The sudden movement had made his head lurch, and although Snape's wand rests on the table, a foot away from his hand, Harry knows that he somehow snapped the leg.
"Bless," Drom says, reaching out and patting the top of Harry's head, and he winces as her fingers brush his hair. The physical touch sends the strangest wave of tingling nausea through him, and he reaches to grasp at her wrist, but that's even worse: the urge to vomit is sudden, and he releases her immediately, putting his hand tightly over his mouth. "Harry, love? You alright?"
"Harry?" Narcissa asks, and Harry sits on the cold stone floor with his eyes closed tightly shut, drying to stem the broiling sickness in his stomach.
"Don't touch me," he mumbles hurriedly, "I think- I think I'm going to be-" With a quiet clank, a disused, iron cauldron is dropped beside him. Narcissa is kneeling in front of him, her eyes flickering over him with an obvious concern, and while Snape isn't showing anything as plebeian as human emotion, he has made the effort to stand. "See, Drom?" Harry croaks. "He does take care of me."
"If you miss the sides of that cauldron, Potter, we will see that I take care of your corpse." Harry laughs, but halfway through he retches, and he grabs at the edges of the cauldron before bending over it. The pain in his scar is pulling at him, and sickening waves of nausea and shivering cold run through him as he grips tightly at the black metal.
"Expecto Patronum," Harry hears Snape say, but when he opens his eyes his vision swims, and he groans as he watches the silver shape run out of the room, holding Snape's message to Dumbledore: "Come now. It's his scar."
- 13
- 14
- 15
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The Serpent's Gaze, Book Four: Betting On Blood