Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or any of the characters.

A/N: Thanks to MaeSilverpaws1, who is beta-ing this story.

Chapter Ninety-One

First Task

"I can't take this anymore!" Ginny groaned, bouncing in her seat. "Why can't they start already?"

"I don't know if starting is going to help," Hermione commented, looking almost as anxious as Ginny. "If Harry isn't first it's only going to make things worse."

"No … there is nothing worse than waiting right now," Ginny argued. "Listening as all the other people wonder what's going to happen in this task … wondering if Harry is going to crash and burn …" she added as she looked at a few Slytherin sitting not too far away from them. "At least when the stupid tournament starts I won't have to listen to them."

"I won't mind them shutting up either," Ron grumbled. "I wonder how Harry's doing."

"Oh, he's doing fine, all things considering," Fred said, sitting next to George just behind the others.

"Considering what?" George asked. "And where were you?"

"Just getting a bird's eye view of things," Fred grinned.

"What did you see?" Neville asked.

"I saw that Harry has the worst luck ever," Fred shook his head. "And we have a long wait before it's his turn."

"He's last," Ron groaned knowingly and Fred nodded his head.

"And he's facing the Horntail," Ginny added receiving another nodded from Fred.

"Yep," he sighed. "And the task is for the champions to retrieve a golden egg."

"So, what were you saying about the wait?" Hermione said.

"It sucks," Ginny grumbled.

At that moment Bagman's magically enhanced voice broke through the silence announcing that Cedric would be the first champion coming out of the tent and he would be facing a Swedish Short-Snout.

"Go Cedric!" Neville cheered and Ron glared at him. "What … he's a good guy?"

"He's Harry's competition," Ron grumbled but everyone else rolled their eyes at him.

"Harry doesn't care about that … so I don't know why do," Hermione said but couldn't say anything more because that's when Cedric started his attempt for the egg. He transformed a stick into a dog; the dragon seemed to go for it before she changed her mind and went after Cedric. "Oh dear!"

"He's okay," Ron said, but he was winching when Cedric got hit by a fire blast the dragon sent in his direction. The only thing that was good about this was that at that moment Cedric had also grabbed the egg. "See … Charlie and the others are stunning the Short-Snout now."

"Do you really think he'll be okay," Hermione said leaning in closer as she watched Madam Pomfrey and several other people rushed over to where Cedric remained.

Ron swallowed hard, his mind clear of dragons and his best friend's troubles for a moment as he thought of trying to comfort his other best friend. Of course, he didn't know one bloody thing he could do to actually comfort her, he was sure his sweaty hands would just grouse her out … and wrapping his arm around her seemed much too dangerous to him.

"Oh good, he's getting taken care of," Hermione said sitting back and then turned to look at Ron with a raised eyebrow. "Ron … are you okay?"

"Yeah," Ron answered, groaning inside for not acting fast enough.

"Hey there Ron, you were scared for Cedric," Fred said and Ron knew the tone didn't mean a good thing. "Your ears are bright red …"

"Shut up," Ron turn to hiss at his brother as Fred and George sniggered.

"Well, it's nice to know that you were concerned," Hermione said and when Ron turned back to her, his face still red from embarrassment she was smiling at him. "I knew that it was just an act that you were annoyed at Cedric."

"Yeah … an act," Ron chuckled, it was better she believe that then know what he was really thinking.

"Look, Fleur is coming," George said. "Wow, that girl really is a looker."

"As if that's important," Ginny rolled her eyes at all of her brothers.

"It's more important to see if she can actually do something against the dragon," Hermione added, giving Ron and annoyed look when she noticed his grin, before turning her attention back to the game.

"What is she doing?" Neville asked as they watched Fleur wave her wand and something happened. It wasn't like she cursed the dragon, it was more like she was enchanting it.

"Huh … it looks like she put the dragon to sleep," Ron said in a distant voice as he continued to smile.

"Impressive," Fred said, grinning when Hermione turned to frown at him. "What … don't you think it's impressive that she put a dragon to sleep … maybe she's not just a pretty face."

There was a cry from the crowd and they all turned to see Fleur shooting water out of her wand to put out her skirt … that was now on fire.

"What happened?" Hermione asked, worried. Though she wasn't too fond of the older girl, she still didn't want her to be hurt.

"The dragon started snoring fire," Neville said winching. "It caught her skirt … but I think she's okay …"

"You were saying," Ginny said to Fred.

"I think she did, well," Luna said.

"See, even Luna is with us," Fred said wrapping his arm around her as he grinned at his sister and Hermione. "Don't you think it's time to give Fleur a little break?"

"Whatever," Ginny shrugged.

"It's Krum's turn!" Ron exclaimed.

"He's more excited by Krum than he was by seeing the beautiful girl," George said sniggering.

"Shut up!" Ron glared at him.

"Oh … it looks like Krum is trying the Conjunctivitis curse," Hermione said intrigued. "That's the one that Remus had suggested Harry use."

"Well it seemed to have worked," Neville said.

"Merlin … I'm glad Harry decided to go with flying," Ron said turning pale as they watched the dragon that Viktor had just curse stump around madly.

"Yeah … me too," Ginny agreed, "especially, with the Horntail."

"I'm betting Krum will wish he thought of flying too, right about now," George added.

"Yeah … he'll sure be kicking himself after Harry goes," Fred smirked.

No one said anything after Krum had received his score, though they were all feeling nervous before, it was much worse now that it was Harry's turn. Not one of them could imagine what Harry must be going through, but seeing him walk out to face the dragon, his eyes portraying his fear, they felt horrible. Suddenly Harry swallowed down the fear as the task started and he just reacted on instinct, using the summoning charm to call his broom to him. The crowd seemed to grow restless as nothing happened for nearly twenty seconds. Harry's seven friends seemed to have grown cold inside as they held their breath just waiting for his spell to work.

"Oh sweet Merlin, there it is!" Ginny said pointing to the broom that was zooming towards Harry.

"You can do this, Harry!" Ron chanted.

As soon as Harry took flight everyone could feel themselves truly relax. They weren't sure why, since he still had to fly against the dragon, but the feeling was probably due to Harry's expression. He seemed to know that he could do this and so they felt confident in him as well. It was only a matter of minutes when Harry had tricked the dragon into taking flight and then snatched his golden egg.

"Bloody brilliant!" Ron cheered, moving to clap his hands only to realize with shock that he was holding Hermione's hand. When did that happen? he asked himself, but before he could get any kind of answer (or know if he grab her hand or if it was the other way around) he found himself getting hugged by Hermione (much to his pleasure) and then Ginny … then Neville, Luna, Fred and George as they all cheered for Harry's success.

O

The after party in the Gryffindor common room was the best that Harry had ever attended. It didn't really matter so much at the moment that he had been forced into this tournament. He had just faced a dragon and lived to tell the tale. Not only that, he had his friends cheering him on … obviously almost as relieved as he was that this task was over with. Even Neville and Luna were in the Gryffindor common room to join the celebration; it seemed that most of the Gryffindors had accepted their presence in the common room. Fred and George were entertaining everyone with their canary creams that turned unsuspecting people into canaries.

"I said it before and I'll say it again, never trust anything the twins give you," Ginny laughed as she watched one of her year mates start to turn back to a person.

"You're the one that gave me the cookie," the girl glared at her.

"Yeah, well, you should know by now that she's the most devious one in our family," Fred said. "She actually has an innocent face that people still believe."

"It's a talent," Ginny grinned. "Sorry."

"It's okay," the girl shrugged. "It's kind of nice being one of the test subjects."

"So what do you think the next task is going to be?" Seamus asked. "After dragons it must be something really deadly."

"Thanks Seamus … you know just how to make me relax," Harry said rolling his eyes and the other boy shrugged. "They said the next clue was in the egg."

"So open it up already," Seamus said.

Harry felt it was as good a time as any and so picked up the egg that he had kept close to him because it seemed to be proof that that day's events were real. He wished he had decided to wait as soon as he opened the egg and a horribly screeching noise came out of it.

"What the bloody hell was that?" Ron asked as the common room was now quiet and everyone was holding their ears and glaring at Harry.

"Sorry guys … didn't know that was going to happen," Harry said to the room at large and no one seemed to really mind. "And I have no idea what that was."

"I don't either," was heard from a few other people as other looked confused or shook their head.

"It looks like I have another mystery on my hands," Harry sighed.

"I don't know why you're so glum, Harry," Lee Jordan said. "You've been solving mysteries since you were eleven. You have an advantage on the other competitors."

"You do have a point," Harry laughed. "But I think I'll wait until later before I try to work out what that awful noise was."

"We all appreciate that," Lee answered. "Now let's get this party back going."

It really was quite the party and Harry enjoyed every minute of it. Harry told everyone what it was like 'learning' he was facing a dragon. It wasn't that hard for him to think of that lie seeing as he did feel that shock … it was just a few days before. Then what it was like to wait as he listened to the others do their task and finally the task itself. Harry had to admit he liked telling the story just like he liked telling people of the pranks he pulled. However, he had also enjoyed when everyone told him about the other champions as well.

O

Harry groaned as he woke up the next morning, rolling out of his bed and seeing Dean and Seamus getting ready. "What were they thinking making the task on a Tuesday?"

"Don't know," Seamus said, "but this just proves my theory about all the professors being evil."

"I might have to agree with you," Harry said, after staying up until one, he really didn't feel like going to classes today. He walked over to Ron's bed and noticed his friend was still fast asleep. It took him several minutes to shake Ron awake and even after he was, Ron seemed to want to just ditch instead of getting up.

"Okay, suit yourself, but you know Hermione's going to ask where you are and I'm not going to lie to her," Harry said. "I'm sure she'll come up here and rip you a new one if you try to ditch."

"That's hitting below the belt," Ron grumbled but he did get up.

"You're uniform is a mess," Hermione scowled when Ron and Harry joined her in the common room.

"Hey, you're lucky I'm wearing it at all," Ron glared at her. "I'm this close to going back upstairs."

"You can't do that," Hermione said looking scandalized.

"Relax Mione, I'm not going to," Ron smiled at her sleepily, sure it sucked that he was going to have to go to class when he would much rather be sleeping, but as long as she was there it was better here.

Somehow, they had managed to get through their classes. Harry had decided to wait a little while before he started working on his egg clue, as he caught up with the work he put off when he was trying to get past the dragon. He figured that he had months before he would have to be ready for the second task anyways. Hermione didn't seem to think that was such a good idea but seeing as he was doing class work she seemed to be appeased. The next week and a half seemed to go by without anything memorable happening but Harry was woken from his haze by something more terrifying than facing a dragon. There was going to be a Yule Ball … and he was going to have to ask a girl to go with him.

A/N: So I've been meaning to say this for a while now and then I kept forgetting to by the time I end the chapter. Anyways, I figured that a lot of the things that are happened in this year are they same as they happened in the book. There are a lot of outside factors in this book in particular that are the same in this story. Instead of put those details in my own words, I just assume that everyone has read the book and realized that's what happened. I hope that makes sense and no one is annoyed by the way I choice to do this.