Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

To the Victor goes the Spoils	By : YamiBakura Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 3634 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or anything related to it. I'm not making any money from this fiction.

Chapter List
- 1
- 2
- 3
Chapter Two - Draco’s Dragon

“You may recall that the challenges will be the same this time around, though for subsequent Tournaments they will of course be shuffled around. This is due mostly in part to the fact that Britain is still recovering from the blows Voldemort dealt us, both physically and financially, and well,” McGonagall cleared her throat nervously. “If you must know, we weren’t expecting to be holding another one ever again, and no one’s had time to think of anything else.”

The other people in the room chuckled quietly. Gabrielle Delacour’s laugh sounded like bells, melodic and infectious, and ordinarily Draco would have found her attractive – both of the girls chosen to be Champions were attractive, truth be told – but he was still flushed with a sense of accomplishment. He’d become the Hogwarts Champion and Potter and stood up and applauded him for it! The overwhelming sensation of king of everything was nearly enough to drown out McGonagall’s warnings about the dangers of the tournament, but Draco forced himself to pay attention when she turned to the rules.

“You are permitted, of course, to ‘unintentionally’ copy the previous Champion’s techniques if you are unable to think of anything more suitable,” McGonagall was saying. She was staring directly at him as she said it, and his bubble of happiness deflated a little as he wondered what on earth she was getting at.

Then he remembered that the first task was a great bloody dragon, and he was going to have to retrieve an egg from beneath it without getting cooked and eaten or stepped on, or damaging the other eggs.   And Potter had summoned his broom and stunned everybody with his flying. Since Draco had been told by several impartial teachers – Madam Hooch foremost among them – that while Potter had the grace, he had the style, and they were undoubtedly a pair of the most talented fliers she’d ever had the joy of teaching. “Shame about the brazen cheating and rivals-unto-death thing, of course,” was the unspoken addition to that statement, but Draco knew that if Potter could do it so could he, and since he’d just been handed permission to do it himself, he was no longer worried about the first challenge whatsoever.

This feeling lasted right up until the minutes before the match, waiting in the tent for their dragons to be assigned. Katarina pulled hers out first, and Draco saw that she’d be facing a Ukrainian Ironbelly.   It was a metallic grey colour, almost the same shade as some of his cauldrons, and its eyes gleamed scarlet in the dim light. Gabrielle reached into the bag and withdrew a Peruvian Vipertooth. She shrieked and dropped a moment later, and Draco saw that it had bitten her and was now spitting flame at the hem of her robes. It wasn’t hot enough to burn them, but she nearly kicked it away before she remembered that she’d been given the option to keep it.

“Well,” she said, picking it up by the tail as it continued to flame at her. “At least ‘e is cute.”

“Poisonous, too,” Draco added, glad he hadn’t gotten the Vipertooth.

“The poison has been removed from the one you will be facing, of course,” said the mediator consolingly as Gabrielle nearly dropped the thing again. “Although it will still not be good to get bitten; it might become infected, or worse points will be taken off.” Draco lifted an eye at his idea of the severity of things while Gabrielle held the dragon model at a safe distance, pinching its tail to keep it from burning her. “That leaves, of course, our beautiful Antipodean Opaleye for you, Mr. Malfoy,” said the judge and withdrew the final dragon miniature from the back. The girls leaned in close, oohing and ahhing at its iridescent scales and multi-hued eyes. Draco cradled the small dragon close to him and wondered if Potter still had his. The dragon thrummed contentedly and curled up in his arms.

“We have a few moments to wait, of course,” the judge said. Katarina and Gabrielle crowded close, still cooing over Draco’s dragon.

“Eet is so beautiful,” Gabrielle murmured, her free hand reaching out to stroke the back of the Opaleye. "You are so lucky,” she added, glaring with distaste at the unhappy Vipertooth that had climbed up its own body and wrapped itself around her wrist like a snake.

“Yes, locky,” Katarina said, her throaty voice nearly a purr despite the accent that nearly obliterated her words. “Vot vill you name heem?”

“Name?”

“Oh yes,” Gabrielle said. “I’ve already named mine. I will call him Vicieux, because that eez what he is.”

“Mine, I name heem Parányi. Et is how you say, tinny? Becauze he ez so beg. Thee Ironbellies are de beggest dragons en de vorld, you know.”

Draco puzzled through this statement for a moment, and then caught her mistake. “Ah, you mean tiny. Small. Yes, very apt, both of them. But the only thing I could call this one is Gorgeous, and that’s no name. He needs something like Killer or F- no, not Fang, but maybe Brute. So he doesn’t get a complex, you see.”

He could see the glaze just beginning to come over both girl’s eyes, and realised he was losing them with his untraceable chain of thought. Gabrielle shook her head, recovering quickly.

“You can’t name heem something moche like zat,” she said. “Surely you have a favourite name. Name him zat instead, and he will not get complexed.”

“Katarina Dukarov? You’re up!” The judge poked his head through the tent, located the Durmstrang girl, and jerked his head out towards the stadium. She put Parányi, her dragon down for safekeeping and strode from the pavilion, her head held high. Draco had to admire her pluck, but as he was last in line, he didn’t have to worry about it himself yet. Instead, his whole mind was preoccupied with the name for his little dragon. Gabrielle had named hers Vicious, so that was out. And Tiny was a wholly inappropriate name for him. He thought about what Delacour said, choosing his favourite name. His favourite names were Draco and Narcissa, though he was also fond of Bellatrix and Andromeda, Sirius and Regulus. His family on the Black side had had the right idea, naming their children for astronomical things. He considered some of the constellations, since he didn’t know any more specific stars off the top of his head.

“I think I’ll call him… Scorpius,” he announced, just as the watching crowd gasped and screamed at something Katarina did.

“Ooh, I hate not being able to watch!” Gabrielle twisted her attractive face up into a scowl, then smiled at the Opaleye. “Scorpius,” she repeated, her accent twisting the word into something cute as she smiled. “I like that name.” She shifted her smile up to his face and Draco found himself smiling back. The screaming crowd interrupted the moment, and then they heard the commentator – Loony Lovegood, if the dreamy half-conscious tone was any indication – announcing that it had taken Katarina Dukarov of Durmstrang nearly twenty minutes to collect the egg. Draco was startled; he didn’t realise how quickly the time was going in contemplation and conversation. He eyed Gabrielle a little more closely and chalked it up to her Veela blood muddling his generally lightning-quick processes. Katarina was taken, triumphant, to a spectator’s box to watch the other two and Gabrielle blew a kiss at Draco as she left the tent, still trying to shake Vicieux from her wrist.

Draco settled down to wait, knowing he’d feel every second of the waiting this time around with no one in the tent except himself and Scorpius.

The more he thought about it, the more attached he became to the name.

-o0o-

Harry watched Gabrielle Delacour use some fantastically intricate wandwork to distract the Vipertooth she was facing – with, he noticed halfway through, the tiny model version wrapped around her wrist like some sort of bizarre bracelet – before darting in underneath it, showing immense bravery, to seize the egg. Katarina had waited until the immense dragon shifted itself away from the nest to go for her egg, resulting in a time lag that brought her score down. He remembered Gabrielle from the previous Tournament, as well as being around Fleur and Bill’s wedding. She seemed to have grown into herself in the intervening time since then and was an attractive, powerful witch. The smile she’d sent him when she saw him was welcome, too, and he was superficially glad Ron was settled with Hermione and that he and Ginny had decided to go their separate ways.

Actually, if he were being honest, it had been more of a Ginny deciding he wasn’t as right for her as she’d always believed, and she thought they could be great friends, but that he needed someone a bit more masculine than she, and it still irked Harry that his girlfriend had noticed he was gay before he had.

Gabrielle finished her task in much less time than it had taken Katarina, and Harry cheered loudly for her as she flashed the egg over her head and went to join Katarina and Luna in the stands. Draco Malfoy was called out last, and as he strode into the arena, head held high, Harry felt a wash of pride for the Malfoy heir that had nothing to do with the bitter, resentful, or hateful feelings he’d ever had before. When Malfoy turned and looked directly at him, a bright gleaming smile on his face, Harry felt it like a physical blow to his stomach.

Malfoy didn’t seem to notice, but only swung his head around and shone that grin on the rest of the stands. He visibly took a deep breath as he took in the sight of the Opaleye curled around her nest, and then his wand shot up into the air. The entire crowd gasped and drew back, expecting to see sparks or a spell or – something. Whatever he cast, however, was nonverbal or so quiet that no one heard it, and as soon as that bit of dramatics was over, Malfoy strode right up to the dragon, hands on his hips, and looked up at it without a trace of fear. The crowd around him sighed at the theatrics, and Harry ruefully remembered that ever since first year Malfoy had been a master of working the crowd. The dragon’s head rose up and seemed to meet him eye to eye, staring down disdainfully even as Malfoy glowered up at it. They remained like that for a long moment, locked in silent communication, and then as if it had been practiced Malfoy leapt aside as the great head came down – and landed on the broom he’d called hurtling towards him. Harry recalled that he’d done the same thing, and laughed. Malfoy was an artist in the air, especially when he wasn’t cheating, and it showed now in the way he spun into a roll while he seated himself properly on the broom – no ungainly flailing and jumping and shifting for him! – and dodged the jet of flame the dragon spat at him. He spiraled up around its head and it rose after him, fluid as water, until enough of its body had left the nest to reveal the eggs. Harry saw Draco glance down, probably judging the location of the egg he needed, strain just a little higher and then drop into a freefall between the dragon’s coils. He shot out underneath the tail, dodged a tongue of fire, and then brought himself to the ground far enough from the dragon to be safe, holding the golden egg aloft.

The crowd went mad.

“And Draco Malfoy has taken the lead with a time of less than five minutes from start to finish,” Luna said above the roar with startling clarity. “He now leads with a full fifty points, with Gabrielle Delacour of Beauxbatons in second with fourty five, and Katarina Dukarov from Durmstrang in third place with fourty.”

Once again, not so much against his will as without input from his brain, Harry found himself on his feet as he applauded Malfoy, and it was so much more than just overcoming the rivalry they’d held from day one that kept him standing. This, he realised, is what the Triwizard Tournament should have been.

-o0o-

So I seem to have broken my promise about longer chapters. That seemed like a most excellent place to finish, so I did. My favourite part’s coming up next, so I’m just going to hurry and post this for you so I can get working on it. 8D
- 1
- 2
- 3
You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.
Report Story

To the Victor goes the Spoils