Harry Potter: The Ring Maker - Chapter 535: The first task

“I can’t see why not you are rich , powerful and the girls in class gossip about your looks all the time. Why wouldn’t they be interested?” Harry asked confused. “It doesn’t matter. You though should really get an early start on asking someone out to the ball. Maybe Ginny? She’s had a crush on you for years now after all.” Nick said flipping the topic back to Harry. It was unpleasant but the truth was that Nick knew that he wouldn’t make a good partner. He was too busy all the time and in own daedric nature meant that any child conceived would be far from human and may even be a monster. –

The only real exception to that would be if his partner was also a daedra in which case the children would just be normal daedra with more power than the rest. Nick very much doubted that any girl who he might be interested in would chose him because of his true nature. That was fine by him though as he knew that if he reached daedric prince status then women would practically throw themselves at him despite his nature.-

It was simply a side effect of being a ruler that came with the territory and was to be expected so long as he wasn’t a tyrant. Early on Tuesday when the first task was set to begin Nick made his way to the stands to watch the show. The quidditch pitch had been modified to house the dragons and facilitate the task but Nick had noticed a surprising lack of protective measures on the stands. ‘Lets hope that someone will stand in if the dragons decide to attack us or I will.’ he thought as he took a seat.-

His friends minus Harry all gathered around him on the stands curious about what the task was. Nick found it strange that besides confronting Nick on his knowledge of the task Harry hadn’t told them what it was. “Judging from the terrain that is being simulated I think the task might involve fighting a troll or some other mountain dwelling creature.” Hermione said seriously. “No point keeping it to myself at this point but you are thinking too low on the danger scale , it’s dragons. To be specific brooding females that have eggs to protect.” Nick said calmly.-

“How do you know?” Daphne asked curiously. “I have been aware of the nature of the first task since it was announced and have been secretly helping Harry preparing for it.” Nick said honestly. Everyone nearby looked dumbfounded. “So that was where all that dragon stuff kept coming from!” Ron exclaimed in realization and Nick nodded. “But why didn’t you just say something then if you knew?” Tracy asked confused. “I signed an NDA that meant I couldn’t talk about any of the tasks until the day of them and even then never with the champions themselves.” Nick explained with a shrug.-

“Wait tasks as in plural?” Hermione pointed out and Nick only smiled but didn’t say anything more. As the designer of one of the tasks Nick had been brought in on all of them by Dumbledore and the others in charge of the tournament. So he was of course aware of what all the tasks entail and thus could secretly drop hints for Harry or the other champions but that was it. Honestly speaking he knew that he would get some flak for the way he designed his task after it was revealed he was behind it but that was a problem for the future.-

They tried to pry out information from him but all he could say was “NDA sorry.” and leave them hanging. Magical NDAs were crazy like that as it prevented you from even trying to spill the beans in exchange for a lighter punishment if you broke it. It was very different from the secrecy contracts that meant death if you tried to share what you knew at any time. Soon however The first dragon and it’s eggs were brought into the makeshift arena , the Swedish short-snout. Once it was in place Ludo Bagman started to excitedly explain the point of this task.-

Nick had little doubt that the lyrics and function of the golden eggs had been changed to accommodate his task but the first task was still to get the golden eggs from the brooding dragons. Unlike in the canon the first up to face the dragon was Krum who looked nervous as he entered the field. Swedish short-snouts were fairly mild mannered dragons even when brooding so besides growling and puffing out warning breaths of flame at Krum it merely hovered over the eggs protectively. Nick couldn’t help but frown at what Krum did to get the egg as it was foolish against a Swedish short-snout , he used the conjunctivitis curse on it.