PART ONE
THE TOURNAMENT
Chapter 7
Of course, after that, Fay and I's friendship went back to the way it was. Seamus helped me perfect summoning charms and Fay became my unofficial life coach. She had me eating differently and doing push-ups and stuff, which I hated with a passion. I could barely do one push up the first time she made me do it. On top of that, occasionally she'd throw an insult at me and expect me to come up with a clever retort. Despite me getting a tiny bit better, I'd gone back to a similar way with dealing with people being horrible to me, ignoring them, which Fay detested. No one had really done anything major yet anyway.
On the other hand, I was really enjoying my extra lessons with McGonagall and this morning early before the Hogsmeade visit, after almost three weeks of work, I'd successfully managed to cast a summoning charm wandlessly and non-verbally. Apparently after a little research on Professor McGonagall's behalf, Alder Wood is best suited to non-verbal magic so I managed to get the non-verbal work down pretty fast. Wandlessly was exceptionally hard, because there was nothing to channel my magic through, nothing in my hand to focus my concentration on, but despite many tries, I did manage to do it. Professor McGonagall was impressed, "I'm over the moon with your progress Miss Williams. I've never seen a student progress this fast and to accomplish wandless magic in just a few weeks, it just proves just how much work you are putting in to do this."
The grin on my face didn't fade as I replied, "Thanks Professor."
"I'll see you again tomorrow, ten o'clock," she said, "Now I'm sure your friends must be waiting to go to Hogsmeade. Have fun and keep practicing if you can."
"Okay, thank you Professor," I smiled, pocketing my wand in the inside of my jacket and heading for the door.
"Oh and take thirty points for Gryffindor."
I beamed at her and thanked her once more before leaving the office. Outside Fay was leaning against the wall waiting for me, "What's that grin for?"
"Oh nothing, I just did wandless magic though," I answered, my smile stretching from ear to ear.
Fay's eyes lit up before she bounced excitedly, "Show me please?"
My eyes quickly searched for something to summon before they fell on Fay's wand sticking out of her back pocket. I stuck my hand out and without saying a word, summoned her wand. Her mouth dropped open before we both did a rather girlish celebration in the Transfiguration corridor.
"You're going to kick ass on Tuesday," Fay laughed as we headed down to the entrance hall.
"I don't know about that," I replied.
It was the Saturday before the first task, so every student in third year or above had been granted a Hogsmeade weekend. Dean, Seamus and Neville had gone ahead around ten whilst Fay waited for me to finish a two hour practice session with McGonagall at eleven. Fay had brought me a coat and my scarf and once we both wrapped up warmly we began the walk down to Hogsmeade in the drizzle.
We passed a tonne of people with Support Cedric Diggory badges, but with our hoods up and scarfs on, nobody even noticed me. I can't tell you how happy I was that I could walk around without anyone flashing one of those ridiculous badges at me. It took Fay and I half an hour to reach the village and she was talking away happily.
"You know for once, I'm glad no one is going to bother you here," she said.
"I wouldn't be so sure about that," I muttered, pulling Fay quickly to the side. Rita Skeeter and her pervy photographer friend had just emerged from the Three Broomsticks pub. Talking in low voices, they passed right by Fay and I, thankfully without even looking at either of us. When they had passed, I quickly explained, my voice somewhat venomous, "That's Rita Skeeter."
Fay scowled after the vile woman, "I know. She must be staying in the village. I bet she's coming to watch the first task."
As soon as Fay said it, I huffed slightly. I hated the fact that the first task was literally a few days away and it made it ten times worse that Rita Skeeter was going to be there. We watched her walk away and disappear somewhere up the street before I nudged Fay slightly, "Let's go get a butterbeer, I'm cold and I don't want to bump into her again."
"Good call," she replied.
The Three Broomsticks was packed, mainly with Hogwarts students enjoying their free afternoon, but also with a variety of magical people that we rarely saw anywhere else. I supposed that as Hogsmeade was one of the only all-wizard villages in Britain, it was a bit of a haven for creatures like hags, who were not as adept as wizards at disguising themselves. Because of the amount of people in there, it was difficult negotiating our way through the crowd, but after a while we managed to secure a small table in the corner away from the main crowd. I stayed at the table, whilst Fay went to get drinks, pulling off my coat and scarf and folding them on the seat next to me.
Putting my wand on the table, I continually practiced summoning it from one side of the table to the other. I was kind of terrified that when the time came I'd completely forget what I was doing, but Professor McGonagall reassured me that the adrenaline of the first task would probably help me out.
Fay returned with two butterbeers about ten minutes later and plonked herself opposite me "So had McGonagall been teaching you anything else?"
"I can do a lot of spells I already knew nonverbally now," I answered, "I've only tried summoning charms wandlessly. She also taught me how to transfigure objects into water, Aquadio, that was really interesting actually. She said it was fairly simple to practice, but I spend a lot of time making things explode into water, rather than just turn into it."
Fay snorted with laughter, spluttering when her butterbeer also went down the wrong way. We continued our conversation, and when Fay was talking I observed the other people in The Three Broomsticks as I listened. What I wouldn't give to be one of them, carelessly chatting away without any sense of impending doom.
"Erm Jamie? Fay?"
I was brought back to realisation when Ron, Harry and Hermione approached our table, their drinks in their hands. Fay replied, "Yeah."
"You don't suppose we could join you could we?" Hermione asked, "Ron has something really important to tell you Jamie."
"Yeah, grab a seat," I said nervously, wondering what on earth Ron Weasley could possibly have to tell me. Once they were seated, we all looked to Ron.
"Well I got this letter from my brother Charlie you see," Ron began, "And he told me that he's going to be in the country for a while because of the Tournament. Turns out, he's helping with the first task and he told Hagrid that too. Now Hagrid… Hagrid…"
"Hagrid has a thing for Madam Maxine," Harry interrupted, making Ron's ears turn red in embarrassment.
"The point is that Hagrid is going to show Madam Maxine what the first task is," Hermione continued, "And she's bound to tell Fleur."
"No doubt Karkaroff will find out too so we thought we'd tell you too," Harry added.
Ron took a deep breath, "Thing is Jamie, my brother works with Dragons and they're keeping them in the forest."
I paled before shakily responding, "You're telling me I have to fight a dragon."
"We're not sure," Hermione responded, "Charlie wouldn't tell Ron but Harry has an idea."
Harry pulled something out of his bag and passed it over to me, it was a light thin material, "I was thinking maybe you and Fay could use this to go and get a closer look tonight. Hagrid told us he's meeting Madam Maxine at midnight tonight and I figured you could use this to follow them. Just be careful with it okay?"
Fay gawped, "Is that…?"
Harry nodded quickly, "Yeah so if you could put it away that would be great."
I was really confused. I had no idea what the silvery material that Fay had just taken from me was, but I did know one thing, "No wonder Professor McGonagall taught me Aquadio. She's been trying to subtly help me out."
"She's taught you Aquadio?" Hermione asked eagerly, her brown eyes widening.
I half-smiled, the dragon news weighing heavily on my mind. "Yeah I'll show you if you have something small."
Hermione fished a knut from her pocket and I showed her, careful not to reveal the nonverbal magic thing as it seemed like something I may be able to use to my advantage later on. The three remained seated with us for a good half an hour, mainly discussing the tournament in various ways and briefly discussing Mad-Eye Moody who was sat across the pub with Hagrid, drinking from his hip flask.
Later on that afternoon, around four, Fay and I, along with Dean, Seamus and Neville (who we'd met up with just after leaving The Three Broomsticks) decided to return to the castle before it started to rain again. Unfortunately, despite going all day without attracting the attention of anyone in particular, someone knocked into me from behind. I stumbled, but managed to stay on my feet as I turned to see who the culprit was.
"You better watch where you're going loser," Draco Malfoy drawled. For a moment, I considered ignoring him but the look on Fay's face told me to respond now before she did.
"As far as I'm aware you walked into me," I responded calmly, "Maybe you should look where you're going."
His smug look turned ever so quickly into a sneer, "Wow, it finally speaks. I was beginning to think you were slower than Longbottom here."
Something started burning deep in the pit of my stomach and without even thinking my wand was in my hand. "Say that again."
Fay quickly had her hand around my other arm and was hissing down my ear. "I said stick up for yourself, not get yourself injured."
I remained still as Draco Malfoy laughed and pushed past me with Crabbe and Goyle. "You wouldn't be able to do anything anyway."
My whole body shook with anger as we watched the group head up the path away from us. I was desperate to shoot any spell at him, but annoyed I put my wand back in my jacket and pulled my arm from Fay's grip.
"What a little shite," Seamus growled, "Ignore everyt'ing he said Nev. He's an eejit."
Neville shuffled slightly on the spot, "It's okay."
I immediately thought to myself that it was not okay, it was not okay to let Malfoy speak to him like that, but then I realised that was exactly what I did all the time. Neville just ignored them, just like I usually did so what was the right thing to do?
