Unknown Prophecy (Ch. 72) (Patreon)

( Every character in this story is a legal adult over the age of 18 )

Unknown Prophecy

Chapter 72

Harry surged forward, shoving his broom between two racers who were so busy glancing back that they nearly collided with him. The wind stung his eyes, but it was the blasts of searing heat and the screams that truly rattled him. The dragons behind them were closing the gap with terrifying speed, and the bloodlust in their eyes was unmistakable even from a hundred meters away. One of the witches in front of Harry looked over her shoulder, saw what was coming, and let out a shriek so high-pitched that Harry’s ears rang. It was utter chaos. Every flyer tried to put on a burst of speed, but instinct drove them to scatter as well, and the air was suddenly thick with swerving bodies and brooms.

The first dragon, a Common Welsh Green, caught up before anyone could even react. It was huge. Its wingspan must have been thirty meters at least, and it moved with a terrifying grace. Its massive tail swished side to side like a scythe. Its emerald scales shimmered in the sunlight, and its snout was ridged and angular, giving it a look of perpetual hunger. It let loose a thin stream of fire in a wide, sweeping arc that forced every nearby racer to dive or veer off course. One unlucky bastard in a yellow racing suit took the brunt of the blast. He screamed as the flames engulfed his broom, then tumbled end over end as the burning handle disintegrated beneath him. The dragon gave a satisfied roar and banked hard, already searching for its next target.

The second dragon, a Chinese Fireball, was smaller but much more nimble, and its colors were shockingly bright against the dull background of the rock, snow, and sky. Its scales were red and gold, and they were arranged in intricate, snake-like patterns. Its eyes glowed with an eerie intelligence. Instead of roaring, it made a deep, rumbling hiss that Harry felt in his bones. The Fireball tucked its wings, dove toward the pack, and snatched a French racer right off his broom. The dragon’s claws closed around the screaming man, and with a single bite, the Frenchman was gone. The Fireball didn’t even slow down. It spat out the racing broom like a toothpick and kept pace with the leading group, weaving through the racers with vicious precision.

The third and last was a Hungarian Horntail, and Harry’s gut clenched as he recognized it instantly. This one was twice the size of the others, and it was covered in black, iron-like scales that gave off a nasty, oily sheen. Its bronze horns were longer than Harry’s entire broomstick, and its yellow eyes burned with the kind of hatred that made Harry’s skin crawl. The Horntail roared once, and the force of the sound nearly knocked Harry off his broom. It didn’t bother with fire at first. It simply barreled through the air, smashing into anyone too slow or too panicked to get out of the way. Two racers who tried to swerve apart to dodge the beast ended up tangling with each other instead, and the Horntail barreled right through their bodies with a sickening crunch. Blood misted through the air, and the Horntail snapped at the mess as it passed. Its gigantic jaws closed on what was left.

Harry ducked low and felt the wind shear over his head as the Horntail’s spiked tail whipped past, missing him by less than an arm’s length. The screaming, the fire, and the smell of burning hair and leather all blurred together as Harry forced every ounce of speed from his Firebolt. The course ahead twisted violently through the mountain pass, and the dragons stuck to the pack like wolves chasing a herd. For the next few minutes, everyone acted on pure survival instincts. Racers dodged, ducked, and threw every dirty trick they knew to stay ahead or knock rivals back into the jaws of death.

The Firebolt carried Harry ahead of the worst of it, but he could still feel the dragons behind him, and every so often a burst of flame or a flash of scales filled his peripheral vision. He clenched his jaw and focused on getting to the finish line, but the course’s next challenge appeared fast and merciless. Harry moved into a bottleneck where the mountain walls squeezed the racers into a narrow, winding canyon. Harry quickly glanced back, and he could already see the first of the dragons fighting to wedge itself between the stone walls. Sparks shot off the walls when its talons scraped the stone as it forced a path through. The racers funneled into the canyon along with the dragons in a screaming, clawing mass. Harry heard a deep rumble, and he looked over his shoulder. 

The Horntail was nearly on top of him. Its mouth was open, and its fangs were dripping with bloody saliva. Harry gritted his teeth, hunched on the broom, and dove, barely avoiding a spurt of flesh-melting dragonfire. 

The Horntail’s jaws snapped shut on empty air just above Harry’s head, and the force of its lunge sent a shockwave that nearly flipped his broom. Harry yanked the Firebolt into a deeper dive, and for a moment he could feel the black dragon’s hot, bloody breath on the back of his neck. He didn’t dare look back, but he heard and felt the wind shear as the monster’s talons clipped a jagged ridge of stone less than a meter above him. The shriek of its claw on granite was so loud it made him wince in pain. 

There was nowhere to fly except down, so Harry banked hard and flattened himself against the broom as the canyon walls closed in. He almost crashed straight into the dead body of a fallen racer. There was a flash of a blue racing suit with the broom handle still clutched in his hands as he tumbled end-over-end just ahead. Harry jerked sideways and barely missed the corpse. Then he had to duck again as another body flew past him like a meteor. This one was scorched black and trailing smoke as it tumbled through the air. The bottom of the canyon was already littered with splintered brooms from past races, and it didn’t fill him with confidence. 

And then, above the chaos, the Horntail let out a guttural roar and folded its wings for a dive. The sunlight gleamed off its bronze horns and the oily shimmer of its black scales as it closed the last few meters between them with its jaws gaping wide. Harry knew instantly that he couldn’t outfly it in this narrow canyon. He needed a trick. He braked hard while yanking the broom back so violently that his teeth cracked together, and he almost lost his grip. The move cost him precious momentum, but it worked. The Horntail shot past so close to him that Harry could see the yellow of its eyes and the ragged edges of its fangs.

Before he could even breathe, the air above him filled with the shadow of the Common Welsh Green. The dragon was bigger up close than Harry had realized, and it moved with the confidence of a predator that had never known fear. In its jaws were two racers. Both were still alive, and both were screaming and trying to pry themselves free as the dragon’s teeth sank slowly through their arms and torsos. The Welsh Green barely noticed Harry, but as he pulled up and leveled off just beneath its belly, he could see the patchwork of scars and old wounds crisscrossing its stomach. The dragon’s legs stretched forward, and it lashed out at the Horntail, which had slowed to look for Harry. The two monsters collided with a sound like a thunderclap. Their jaws snapped, and their wings beat with the force of a hurricane. 

Harry knew the safe move was to drop away and let the dragons fight each other, but there was no time. The Fireball, which had vanished during the Horntail’s attack, reappeared in a blur of red and gold. Its menacing eyes were locked directly on Harry. The dragon swooped in at an insane angle and let loose a wall of fire so hot that the air shimmered between Harry and the coming blast. He rolled the broom until he was almost upside-down, but the fire caught the bottom of his boots and set them smoking as Harry dove out of the way. Harry screamed in pain and hit his boots with a wandless Aguamenti Charm, trying to douse the smoldering fabric. Above him, the fire hit the Common Welsh Green square in the back. The impact was like a bomb going off. The Welsh Green’s armored back blistered, and some scales flaked away, exposing raw muscle.

The explosion sent a shockwave through the canyon, causing massive rocks to fall from the walls. The air pressure alone flattened Harry against the broom. The Welsh Green convulsed, and their jaws clenched shut on the two racers so hard that both bodies burst in a spray of blood and gore. The dragon’s grip loosened, and the dead fell like rubbish to the canyon floor. For a split second, Harry had a clear view of the sky, then the entire, multi-ton bulk of the Common Welsh Green slammed into the canyon wall. The crash sent up a blizzard of stone and dust, and the dragon bounced off the surface, spinning wildly. Its wings cartwheeled and smashed through the pack of remaining racers. At least five of them were caught midair and scattered across the rocks.

Harry had just enough time to see the mangled mass of a Romanian racer get flung directly at him. He ducked and felt the body graze his shoulder. The impact nearly sent him off course. Shards of splintered broomstick whistled past his face, but he kept his head down and powered forward, trusting instinct and skill to weave him through the carnage. The Firebolt responded beautifully, darting between falling bodies, dragon scales, and fragments of shattered brooms. At least twenty racers were gone in under ten seconds. Some had been incinerated, and some had been crushed under the weight of the falling Welsh Green. Some racers simply vanished into the cloud of debris and never came out. 

Behind him, the Horntail and the Fireball were now chasing each other, locked in a vicious, spiraling dogfight. Occasionally one or the other would let out a plume of flame, and the roar echoed through the canyon like artillery blasts. The racers that had pulled ahead when Harry had pulled back had thinned out to less than twenty, and Harry caught glimpses of them as he followed the tight turns of the pass. Every so often, another body or dragon part would drop from above, and Harry found himself dodging teeth the size of kitchen knives and chunks of dragon hide as thick as tree bark.

The finish line was nowhere in sight, and Harry’s sense of direction was gone. All he could do was keep moving and avoid getting killed. His hands were shaking so badly from the constant high-speed maneuvers that he thought he might lose control. At one point, a hunk of flaming dragon scale the size of a shield smashed into the rock just ahead and ricocheted toward him. Harry let go with one hand and swatted the burning chunk away with a blast of magic. Still, the intense heat scorched his skin, but he barely noticed the pain. He was hyperfocused on not getting himself crushed, eaten, or incinerated.

The course dipped suddenly, and Harry shot out of the canyon and into a wide, bowl-shaped valley. For a moment, he could see the entire field. The remaining handful of racers were beat up and very nervous-looking, and the two dragons were still locked in mortal combat above. Harry realized how close he was to the front of the pack. Most of the best fliers had been wiped out in the last few minutes. He was in the top ten and gaining ground fast, but the race wasn’t over. 

The valley was full of obstacles. There were floating hoops that moved back and forth and up and down across the path, razor-thin rock formations that stuck out dangerously, and magical barriers that shimmered in and out of sight. Worse still, the Horntail broke free of the dogfight and zeroed in on Harry with a single-minded determination. The dragon dove, using its wings to effortlessly slice through the air. Its tail lashed back and forth as it tried to line up the killing blow.

Harry ducked low and threaded the broom through a ring of stone that was barely wide enough for his body. He felt the passing rush of the Horntail’s claws less than a second behind. The dragon shrieked in frustration and blasted fire, but Harry was already through the next obstacle, rolling the Firebolt and whipping around a spindly pillar that blocked the fire’s path. He gained precious meters of distance, though he lost a bit of speed when he had to dodge the falling body of a racer who had clipped his knee on the inside of a ring. The Horntail was relentless, and it kept pace with malicious intent.

Harry realized there was only one hope. He had to force the Horntail into making a mistake. He timed the next set of floating gates, weaving left, then right in a crazy S-curve. The dragon was bigger and faster, but it couldn’t match the broom’s agility. At the last gate, Harry looped under and pulled a tight upward corkscrew, rocketing past the stunned faces of the nearby racers. As the Horntail tried to follow, its massive flank clipped one of the floating hoops. The magical ring shattered into a storm of sparks and razor-sharp stones, and the Horntail roared in surprise, but it didn’t back off. Instead, it redoubled its speed and came at Harry with jaws wide open, and its fangs gleaming.

Harry’s heartbeat was thundering in his ears as he realized this was it. He had a split second to live or die. He braced for the attack, then at the last possible instant, he twisted the Firebolt into a micro-roll and flattened himself along its length, using every ounce of his will to push for one more burst of speed. The Horntail’s bite missed by less than an inch, and the beast’s momentum carried it forward as Harry jerked to the left. The beast went straight into a maze of sharp, upright stones. The dragon crashed with a thunderous boom, and the violence of its impact sent a rain of debris in every direction.

Harry didn’t hesitate. He shot forward, weaving through the chaos, and tried not to look at the carnage behind him. There were only a few racers left, and they were all behind him.

The course bent upward, curving along the inside of the valley, and Harry let himself breathe for the first time in minutes. Harry’s hands were cramping, his face felt raw, and his throat and eyes were burning, but he had made it through the worst of it. At least, that’s what he thought. The valley closed in, and he was funneled into another narrow canyon. This canyon only went on for a few hundred meters. Harry groaned when he saw the opening of another cave system. However, the roar of the Chinese Fireball behind him made him long for the safety of the cave. He angled his broom and dove in. 

The transition from the open sky to a dark cave was a shock to the system. The air inside was instantly colder and wetter, and Harry began to shiver. He barreled in hot, gritting his teeth as the tunnel narrowed and the ceiling dropped. There was almost no light, but Harry magically summoned a large ball of light that floated overhead, and he suddenly saw a hellscape of jagged rocks, unpredictable drops, and stalactites that threatened to skewer him if he made even a single mistake. Behind him, the pressure wave of the Fireball’s last blast of flame rushed in, making the cave momentarily light up with a bright red glow.

The last few competitors left were now all in the cave with him, and all of them were desperate just to survive. He saw a flash of green robes as a racer tried to take a risky shortcut around Harry, but he vanished as a stalagmite ripped straight through the flier’s knee. Harry winced as the racer spun, screamed, and disappeared into the darkness below. Some racers tried to go high, and others went low, but no one could escape the danger. 

The first collapse happened so fast that Harry barely saw it. A chunk of the ceiling the size of a car exploded down directly in front of him. He jerked up on the broom and rolled sideways, bouncing his left shoulder hard against a limestone spike. Pain shot down his arm, but he kept his grip. The debris hit the cave floor behind him, blocking off the tunnel and trapping some racers back there. Harry didn’t look back, but he heard the muffled crash and the desperate, echoing screams as the other racers tried to dodge the falling rocks. Only two or three voices made it past the first choke point.

There was no time to be grateful for survival. The cave system angled sharply downward, and Harry realized he was in a death chute. The Firebolt picked up speed. It was almost too much speed, and he had to fight the aerodynamic forces trying to rip him off the broom. His face was pressed so hard into the handle that he was sure he would have the imprint on his cheek for at least a week, but he didn’t dare let up. The wind shrieked in his ears, and the tunnel kept getting tighter.

The second collapse was louder and more violent. It started with a deep, percussive rumble, and suddenly the entire cave was falling around him. Rocks sloughed off the ceiling in sheets and tumbled into the path. Harry darted left, then right, then ducked so low that his head was underneath the broom. He felt pebbles bounce off his head and shoulders, but he paid them no mind. The Irish racer who’d torn up his knee had somehow recovered from his crash and was still moving, but he was losing altitude fast as rocks fell all around him. Harry saw his face twisted in agony and terror. The racer tried to swerve around a falling boulder, but it clipped the end of his broom and sent him tumbling off into the darkness. He wouldn’t escape his fate this time. Harry ignored the gut-wrenching feeling and pushed ahead.

He had a feeling that the worst was right in front of him, and he was right. The cave suddenly opened into a massive chamber shaped like an amphitheater, with multiple ledges and a deep pit below. The race path led straight through the center, but there was a catch. The floor of the chamber was a minefield of spikes and columns, jutting up at every angle, and many of them were sharp enough to impale a dragon, let alone a human. Worse, the entire space was filled with a dense, low-lying fog that Harry couldn’t see through.

He hesitated for a fraction of a second, scanning the possible routes. The top edge of the chamber looked passable, but up there the ceiling was honeycombed with stalactites. Some of them were hanging by threads and ready to fall at the slightest touch. The lower route was a gauntlet, but the path was at least visible. Harry made the call. He dove low, trusting his skills to keep him out of trouble. 

As Harry dipped low, he realized the fog wasn’t mist but the superheated steam of a thermal vent. The whole chamber was one big pressure cooker. He choked and blinked, but kept his hands steady and his eyes forward. He wove through the columns, scraping past on multiple occasions, and once he clipped his foot so hard on a spike that he felt something snap. He didn’t check if it was bone or broom. He just kept going.

The two remaining racers had chosen the upper route, and Harry caught glimpses of them as they jockeyed for position, desperate not to be the one who triggered the stalactite collapse. Harry knew he had a better chance below, even if it meant risking a crash landing. He pushed the broom to its limit and ducked hard to avoid a flying chunk of debris. Harry then heard a bone-shaking roar, and there was a flash of orange light. He looked up and saw the last two racers falling down, completely engulfed in flames. The Chinese Fireball had flown down through the collapsed roof of the cave, and it looked more enraged than ever. Harry threw caution to the wind and flew as fast and recklessly as possible. 

The exit was a vertical tunnel, hardly wider than a chimney. Harry hurtled up it, feeling the broom vibrate from the strain. He heard a roar from behind as the Chinese Fireball blasted fire into the darkness. The flames chased Harry up the tunnel, and for a moment he was blinded by the harsh, white-hot glare. He closed his eyes to protect them from the intense heat, trusting his gut and his instincts to get him out. 

He exploded into daylight, scorched and disoriented. He looked back, saw the cave mouth erupt in a fireball, and realized that the racers behind him had not made it. He was completely alone.

He took a moment to breathe. The finish line was still ahead, but it wasn’t far. The last leg of the course was a sprint through the open, and Harry had nothing left to lose. He angled the Firebolt downward, using gravity to add to his speed, and streaked toward the massive ring that marked the end of the race.

Below, the stands were packed with fans. He couldn’t see their faces, but he could definitely hear their shouts of excitement. The finish line floated above a flat, grassy plain, rimmed with banners and magical fireworks. He crossed the line just as the fireworks exploded in triumph. 

Unknown Prophecy

At the finish line, Fleur and Apolline had nervously watched the last moments of the race. The moment Harry’s silhouette appeared at the mouth of the cave, followed by the eruption of dragonfire, they both gasped. Fleur’s heart stuttered, and she gripped Apolline’s hand so tightly that her knuckles went pale. Then suddenly, the crowd erupted in cheers. 

“That’s ‘Arry!” Fleur shouted over the crowd. “I can tell by his messy hair!” She jumped up and down, cheering her lover on. Harry crossed the finish line in a shower of fireworks. He landed on the platform and was immediately surrounded by well-wishers. “Come! Let’s go congratulate him!” Apolline called out over the noise. 

Fleur and Apolline cut through the mob surrounding the victor’s platform. The crowd parted for them on instinct, and Harry saw them coming. He barely looked like himself. His hair was burned to uneven bristles, and his face and neck were streaked with soot and blood. The left sleeve of his racing robe hung in tatters, exposing the raw, angry gash beneath it. But he stood tall in the center of it all, basking in the attention. Journalists hovered near him, getting as many pictures as they could. When Fleur finally reached him, he grinned and pulled both Delacour women close before they could even say a word.

Fleur squeaked in surprise, then instantly rearranged herself to stand on Harry’s uninjured side. She draped her arm across his waist and nuzzled into the crook of his neck. She could smell the scorched hair and blood, but she didn’t care. The platform was chaotic. Hands were everywhere. People shouted questions, and flowers and trinkets were thrust toward the new champion. Apolline was pulled close to Harry’s other side.

The cameras doubled their assault. Fleur, Apolline, and Harry became the instant center of the racing world, and every eye and camera was glued to them. Harry’s battered arm circled Apolline’s waist, and she responded with a wicked little smirk that charmed the press as intended. The crowd lapped it up, and the photographers shouted for more, pushing in for tighter and tighter shots. Fleur grinned and kissed Harry’s cheek, leaving a red lipstick print across his dust-covered face. Apolline did the same, and her lips lingered just long enough to make the crowd gasp.

“Mon dieu, ‘Arry, you look like you’ve been to war,” Apolline said, checking him over. 

Fleur giggled and mussed Harry’s hair, which somehow made it look even worse. The two Delacours posed and played for the press, and each snapshot was more outrageous than the last. Harry was at the center, battered but triumphant, and the Delacour women flanked him like two queens, each staking her claim before the entire world.

Behind them, a medical team stood by, trying to look official, but even the Healers couldn’t help but be wrapped up in the moment. Someone handed Harry a fresh bottle of champagne, and he popped the cork with his thumb, spraying the front row with bubbly liquid. He chugged from the bottle, making Fleur giggle and Apolline roll her eyes. Today was his day, and he planned on enjoying it.