During one of Heri's training periods, Hedwig arrived in a flutter of feathers and squawks of bird-cries. On that day, she was a larger than average raven, and she took plain delight in landing on Bane's back, making the centaur snort and stamp at the uninvited extra weight.
"Hello, lovey," said Heri, easing out of the stretch she was in. She sat up and crossed her legs under her. It was almost time for Heri to return to the castle, so the nymphs had already left after assigning her usual post-workout cool-downs. "Do you have a letter for me already?"
Heri had sent out one of her bi-weekly letters to Sirius only yesterday, so she hadn't been expecting a response so quickly.
"No letter!" Hedwig rasped, making use of the advance syrinx of the Corvus genus. She galloped a bit on Bane's back, much to his agitation. "Gift! Gift!"
Heri frowned in confusion.
"Sirius sent me a gift instead of a letter? But I already have the gloves I asked for."
Auntie Andromeda had sent via Sirius above and beyond the all-occasion gloves Heri had asked for. Along with their fretting letters about the scarring and the danger she was in, Heri had received a pair of very practical half-finger gloves made from mooncalf hide. Mooncalves had thin, almost papery grey skin, which translated into a leather that was as fine and flexible as rice paper. On top of integrating them into her everyday wear so others would not stare at her new scarring, she had taken to wearing them during her training, as they aided her grip on top of looking fabulous.
"Not dog-man!" Hedwig squawked.
Heri's expression turned into one of exasperation.
"Have you been letting people use you to bring things to me again? Hedwig, you can't trust just anyone! What if they try to hurt you or send a hexed letter or something?"
"Not hexed!"
"And how would you —?"
"Not! Hexed!" Hedwig insisted. She stuck out her left fore-leg to reveal not a letter, but a pouch attached.
Heri huffed.
"I suppose I'll have to take your word for it."
The pouch was plainly coloured but was made of a soft material Heri couldn't identify. Not willing to forgo caution, she sprouted a tendril from under the back of her shirt and used it to untie the pouch from Hedwig's leg. She sprouted another to reach into the opening. It seemed to have an Expansion Charm on it — Heri's immaterial limb reached in a lot farther than it should have been able to.
Drawing her appendage back, she pulled out something smoothed and curved.
When her eyes landed on the thing, Heri couldn't help but gape. What? But how? It couldn't be —
"Basilisk fang?" said Bane, his face as slack as hers. "Who would send such a kingly gift?"
Heri's extra appendages withdrew back into her body, letting said kingly gift drop into her hands.
In her grasp was a finely crafted slingshot made out of what was unmistakably the basilisk fang she had sacrificed to her godly parent back in second-year. Here it was again, but this time it had been polished to a pearlescent shine and capped with a silvery metal on the tip and the crown of the tooth. The crown had been shaved down, shaping it into twin prongs, and metal links attached the bands to it. The curved fang the size of a buffalo's horn fit comfortably in her slacked grip.
In wonder, Heri ran her fingers down the metal capping at the bottom, noticing that it wasn't as tight around the pointed end as it was on the prongs. Without thought, she held the slingshot in both hands and pull the two ends apart, giving a small sound when the capping proved to actually be a sheath. The fang was as sharp as ever, and she could see that it was still venomous from the way the tip glistened yellow.
"I suppose this means they're paying more attention than I originally thought," said Heri, her tone detached as she was lost in admiring her new weapon. "I wonder if this counts as divine intervention."
Heri shifted forward in her seat, gripping a crayon firmly as she brought the blue tip of it to the parchment. With her tongue against the corner of her mouth, she pressed the coloured wax onto the page, curving it around to make a perfect circle.
Ah, runes. Marvellous things, really, especially when one was too young to do wand-magic outside of school.
It was a week away from the First Task, and Heri was taking a break from her training in dealing with a dragon.
A few days ago, Hagrid had learned that dragons were brought in when the Weasley boy he was good friends with — Charlie, the dragon-tamer — invited him out to see them as a treat. Hagrid, in turn, invited Madame Maxime — whom he fancied — and Heri to come see them with him.
Hidden under her invisibility cloak, Heri had watched with wide eyes as the massive beasts tore into their food and thrashed in their cages.
The time she didn't spend working to the bone in the Forest was spent scouring the library with her friends. After warning Cedric about the dragons, she had told her friends about what she would be facing. They had been aghast and insisted that they help her research how to deal with dragons. She hadn't entered the tournament of her own free will, and she certainly wasn't anywhere near as trained in magic as the three other champions, so it was only right that she had a boost to reach their level. At least, that was what Hannah insisted as she inducted Neville and Luna into joining their cause as well.
"Wouldn't Hermione be a better choice for this?" Neville asked at one point, looking overwhelmed by the stacks of books they had found on dragons. "She's brilliant at these kinds of things, you know . . ."
All present Hufflepuffs minus Heri had donned an expression like Neville just flung manure in their faces.
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