Fourth Year: Chapter seven
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Hermione and Cosette were considerably surprised when Harry revealed to them the first task. Dragons? Cosette thought that would be the first thing the Department of Magical Games and Sports would want to avoid. That seemed like the perfect task to get one of the champions killed in!
The three of them didn't have a clue at how to begin helping Harry to prepare for the first task at all. How do you even defeat a dragon (If that's even what you were supposed to do?)
Hermione had Harry practicing basic defensive magic while Cosette scoured the library for something that could help him not die.
Cosette heard a throat clear a few feet to the right of where she was standing but contently ignored it, already knowing who it would belong to. Draco had tried this particular tactic, among others, many times over the past couple of days in attempt to deem Cosette's attention. Finally, Cosette turned and faced him, really faced him, in what felt like a year. Avoiding eye contact with such a penetrating stare all the time was hard work.
"And what do you want?" Cosette asked the blond briskly, her nose turned up in the air with unflattering red blotches on her faces she tried to confidently stare him down.
"I have something that might help you…" Draco trailed off while trying to read the odd expression that graced her usually pretty features. "For Potter," he continued.
Cosette tried to contain the gasp that was about to escape her parted lips in surprise, and did so, barely. "Oh? For Scar-Head? What could you have that would help someone you despise so much?" Cosette asked him nonchalantly with a challenging edge to her voice.
Draco's long fingers pinched the bridge of his nose as he tried to gain composer over his emotions. It would do no good to let this particular witch see how she affected him. "I heard Moody talking, after Defense one day; he was saying that he hoped that some of the champions realized they could use summoning charms to get through the first task."
Cosette pondered this for a moment. Moody? She completely distrusted him and wasn't sure if this advice could actually be reliable to them. "Moody was saying this?" She asked completely forgetting her animosity towards Draco for a moment.
"Yes, he was talking to another professor, I'm not sure who."
"Well, thanks I guess, knowing Moody it's probably not allowed anyway though…" She replied back to him. Cosette slowing backed away from the tension that was slowing starting to fill the already stuffy library air.
Cosette knew that Draco probably thought that this would get him completely back on her good side. It might help a little, but not completely. How could she be friends with someone that hated her and her closest confidants? She raced back to Gryffindor tower to tell Hermione and Harry of what she had learned hoping that Hermione would have enough time to review the rules to make sure summoning charms would be legal in the tournament.
"Actually, Cosette, you can use spells like the summoning charms in the tasks. It even says in here you can fly during the tasks if a broom is called for." Hermione said her eyes slightly glazed over from all the rules she had to read before coming across this particular one.
"Well, what am I supposed to summon exactly?" Harry asked the two bitterly.
"Oh, I don't know, maybe something like a sleeping draught or something," Cosette asked dumbly hopeful.
"No, how would you get the dragon to take it in the first place? Plus, that's almost definitely against the rules," Hermione informed them when Harry had started to sit forward in his seat hopefully.
The three thought for a few more moments before Hermione jumped up in excitement. "Harry!" The bushy haired girl exclaimed. "Ludo Bagman said that you could fly in the first task, just that you couldn't have a broom on you."
Harry considered this slightly perplexed before Hermione jumped in again not waiting for his reply "Well isn't it obvious?" Hermione ask the two. Cosette wasn't sure what was supposed to be obvious to them at that point, her brain was so jumbled at the hours they had spent sorting through the rule book. "You use a summoning charm to get your broom down to the part of the grounds where the first task is being performed!" The other two jumped up immediately, sharing her excitement similarly to how she had a couple of minutes ago.
"That's brilliant Hermione! You would be able to teach me one though, right?" Harry asked her sheepishly, though; both already knew that she would.
Hermione, Cosette, and even Ron (Who seemed to have come of his high horse and start talking to Harry again recently) watched anxiously as Harry valiantly tried to save the Golden Egg from the Hungarian Horntail dragon. He seemed to fly everywhere around the pitch except where his beloved ones could see if he was clearly injured or not. Victorious , Harry, finally descended from the clouds greeted by tons of his fellows peers (almost) all of who were glad that he ventured out of the first task alive.
"So," Hermione asked from her bed across the room later that night.
"So, What?" Cosette replied, utterly exhausted from the day's events and her ever present anger at Draco.
"Have you heard about the Yule Ball, that will happen during the winter Holidays?" Cosette could see Hermione twirling a piece of her curly hair as this question fluttered out of her mouth.
"No," she replied truthfully wondering where this was going.
"Well the name is obvious, but I read that usually students bring a date, I was wondering who you would be bringing?" Cosette thought to her limited interaction with the male population at Hogwarts, other than her dropping her quill and Vicktor Krum picking it up, she hadn't talked to any interesting boys. (unless, of course, you counted the ones that hated her)
"No one, I would think."
"What about Draco?" Hermione asked shifting under duvet.
"He's probably bringing Parkinson, I suppose," Cosette uttered bitterly.
Hermione never replied and Cosette thought she probably drifted off to sleep following the obvious end of their conversation. She stayed up late that night, thinking bitterly of how he had to ruin everything good that the two had going for them. They could be going to the ball together, and she wouldn't be stuck going alone watching him twirl and dip Parkinson all night long.
