The Last Slytherin - Chapter 74

The stadium filled with silence seeing a 50ft Ice knight which is twice larger than the Dragon before them and a 25ft long Horned snake hissing at the Dragon. The silence was broken by Ludo Bagman’s cry, the commentator in an astonishment, “a Giant Horned Serpent? A magical beast? Ladies and gentlemen, those who don’t know the history of the Horned Serpent, let me brief you with a quick summary.

Horned Serpents are the magical snakes that are found all over the world but only a few species have the jewel in their forehead which indicated its magical properties. The shards of their horns are extremely valuable and can be used as a wand core.

Not only its horns but various parts of it are valuable potion ingredients. That’s why they were hunted down to extinct in Europe and are currently found in central America. Unlike normal snakes which are ȧssociated with cunningness, they were always ȧssociated with intelligence.

But Slytherin’s Animagus form is larger compared to a normal one which is only 5-6ft in length. Now, coming to its abilities, each species of it was born with a different ability. Let’s see what ability Slytherin awakened”.

While Bagman giving an introduction about the species of Animagus form, the audience, especially the Slytherins erupted in cheers while many people just looked at him silently with fear. Maxime commented, “Dumbledore, it seems your student is just as they claimed, genius of the century. A magical snake as Animagus? That’s commendable indeed”.

Meanwhile, Karkaroff’s face was dark as he was thinking, “damn, I thought it was just a snake but a horned snake with a jewel? I shouldn’t have thought of returning to the Dark Lord at all”. As he ċȧrėssing his left arm, Karkaroff thought, “it’s all because of this dark arm which is becoming visible and thicker by the day.

It made me anxious and chose not to involve with the boy and I have now lost my chance. If only I let Krum inform him about the task beforehand… no matter, this boy has unimaginable potential to at least surpass Dumbledore. I will have to bring him to my side at all costs”.

While the same thing is running through Lucius Malfoy’s mind, Neal is busy hissing and communicating with the Dragon. “give up the golden egg”, and the Dragon roared in response, “You dare to order me, you filthy inferior species?”.

Neal hissed, “it isn’t yours, to begin with, why are you holding on to it?”, the Dragon roared in anger, “all the eggs are mine”. While the audience was wondering what they are arguing about, the Ice knight beside Neal started to walk forward.

As the ground started to shake with it’s each step, The Swedish Short-Snout stepped forward and stood before the clutch of eggs to protect her unborn children. The Ice Knight jumped high in the air and put the half-melted shield before him while the Dragon breathes blue fire towards it.

In the commentator box, Bagman is screaming with excitement, “now, this is how a battle with a Dragon should be. As the Ice shield melted, the Ice Knight pierced one of the Dragon’s legs with its spear. The dragon is shrieking in pain. It bit the Ice Knight’s head intending to tear it away.

Even though half of the Ice knight’s head is gone, it was still battling fiercely and continued to attack the Dragon. Merlin’s beard! The Ice spear pierced its neck. Too bad there wasn’t fatal damage. The Dragon’s scales were too hard to penetrate after all.

Wow, the Swedish Short-Snout began flying in the air going out of the range and breathing out the blue fire but the Ice Knight dodged it and threw the spear but the Dragon also evaded it and once again breathes out the fire and hit the Ice Knight. The Dragon doesn’t seem to stop it at all until the Ice Knight disappears.

Finally, The Ice Knight got defeated and now what will Neal do. Wait a second. Where is Neal? What! The golden egg is also missing”. As the Dragon and the rest were busy watching the action-packed performance, the jewel on Neal’s forehead glowed and the 25ft long snake turned invisible.

With his invisibility, Neal slowly crawled towards the clutch of eggs when the Dragon rose into the air, as he reached the spot, Neal opened his mouth and captured the Golden egg along with one Dragon egg and kept it in his mouth and exited the open stadium through the entrance.

Then after retreating far enough, Neal coughed out the dragon egg in one safe spot. After burying it, he started to return with the Golden egg in his mouth and by the time he returned to the stadium, he saw The Swedish Short-Snout roaring and breathing out the fire in anger, everywhere in the enclosure when it found there are only four eggs out of six.

Just then, Neal stopped just out of the enclosure and turned off his invisibility. The Giant Black Horned snake appearance out of nowhere gathered attention towards him including the Dragon.

Neal then spat out the Golden egg. Seeing the egg, the Silvery Blue dragon began to fly towards him forgetting the fact that she was trapped in the barrier. Before it reaches him, a lot of stunning spells were fired at the Dragon by the dragon keepers as Ludo Bagman screamed in excitement, “Slytherin has acquired the Golden egg without a single scratch on him. He won by using the diversion tactic and then stole the Golden egg by turning invisible. Now that’s brilliant. Give him a big round of applause”.

Neal then changed back into his human form and raised the Golden egg towards the audience as they were cheering his name. After the Swedish Short-Snout was taken away, the five judges who sat at the raised seats draped in gold, at the other end of the enclosure stood up and gave him a round of applause once again before sitting down in their seats.

After her, Dumbledore gave also number 9 for him. After him, the rest of the judges also gave him 9 points each. Neal nodded and walked towards the tent. As soon as he entered the tent, Krum, Fleur, and Harry congratulated him with an astonished expression on their faces.

Neal then looked at Fleur, “next is your turn, good luck”. Then, after him, Fleur went off to acquire the Golden egg. Unlike Neal, she used a Bewitched sleep charm on the Welsh Green Dragon. Although she made it sleepy and acquired the egg easily, her skirt was caught in a fire when the Dragon breathed out the fire while snoring. She used a water spell on it to put the fire off and got a few whistles from the male audience as half of her skirt was burnt.

Then, Krum went off to fight against the Chinese Fireball head-on. He hit its right eye with a spell made it scream in agony and squashed its eggs in the process. As she saw her eggs got squashed, it went maniacal and breathed out the fire in all directions and Krum was saved just in time by one of the Dragon keepers after he acquired the egg.

And lastly, Harry used the summoning charm, “Accio” to summon his Firebolt. And quickly snatched the egg. He was injured a little bit as he was grazed on his left shoulder by one of the spikes of the Hungarian Horntail’s tail.

After all the performances are over, the four champions were called to the stadium again while the five judges stood up and gave them a round of applause once again for their effort before sitting down in their seats.

Bagman then said, “now, after calculating everyone’s points, Neal Slytherin is in the first place with 44 points. Do you know why you haven’t got the perfect score?”. Neal understood that it wasn’t a question or confirmation but they are interrogating him about the missing Dragon egg in a different way.

So, he replied, “yes, when I was in my animagus form, I swallowed a dragon egg by mistake while trying to pick up the Golden egg”.