There's nothing like an adrenaline rush to ruin breakfast. His friends contentedly eating around him, Cassius sat in relative silence, pushing the eggs around his plate.
"While I'm sure the dragon would appreciate your passing out, I would much prefer not to be the friend of the idiot who was too tired to fight one."
"Um, no thanks." Warrington looked up. "Wait, what?" Pucey rolled his eyes.
"I said eat your breakfast so the dragon doesn't eat you. And cheer up, while you're at it."
"I'm glad you feel warm and fuzzy about Cassius fighting a dragon, Adrian, but I'm pretty sure he doesn't."
"Will both of you shut up? We aren't even supposed to know about the dragon!"
"No one was listening until you said something."
"Yeah, your fan club doesn't care about us-"
"Shut it Fawley."
"That's the spirit."
And that was essentially how it ended. At least, Cassius noted, he felt a little better now, and it was with renewed spirits that he began to eat.
/
There were, Cassius figured, worse things in life than stealing an egg from a dragon. In fact, a Swedish short-snout was tame, by dragon standards. But staring the task in the face, he couldn't help but think of the school motto: draco dormiens nunquam titillandus. Never tickle a sleeping dragon. If tickling was bad, he was pretty sure stealing a baby could be filed under "suicidal". Even worse, he was first. In fact, any second now...the sharp tone of a whistle cut through Cassius' thoughts. He exited the tent, itching to steal a glance at the crowd.
"Follow the plan, follow the plan." A deep breath. "Engorgio!" Cassius spoke quietly, and some pebbles grew into boulders. Of course, that was when things started to go wrong. Because dragons aren't stupid, and this one didn't take kindly to magic near its nest. And Warrington, the culprit, was out in the open. Thanking Andrew for all of his annoying exercise, Warrington dove out of the way of the jet of fire, sprinting for the boulders. He needed to catch his breath, but there was no time. Shaking, he peered out from his hiding spot and, focusing as much as possible, turned a stone into a sheep. It wasn't much, but it confused the dragon, who seemed to decide she could use a light snack before finding him. Watching her walk away, Warrington edged closer to her nest, then, once more turning to transfiguration-McGonagall had better give him extra credit for this-he made an egg, flinging it far up into the sky where the dragon was sure to notice. As soon as she pushed off the ground to save it, Cassius covered the remaining distance, snatching the triwizard egg and running for cover.
Fortunately, he had a tight grip. Unfortunately, Pucey was right about how fast dragons were. Warrington's vision blurred as dragon fire grazed his arm, and he bit his tongue so hard that his mouth tasted like blood. Vision blurred, he covered the rest of the distance, barely registering Ludo Bagman announcing his completion. Madam Pomfrey met him immediately upon his return to the tent, tongue clicking in disapproval as she applied burn potion, clearly made in anticipation of such injuries.
"I really don't know what they're thinking, bringing dragons here. We give them their space and it works wonderfully, but these fools decide to steal eggs from a mother!" Smiling, Cassius let Pomfrey finish, then exited the tent to receive his score. Points were, of course, taken off for his injury, but overall, 37 was a respectable score, especially considering Karkaroff's obvious bias. Reentering the tent, Warrington sat quietly, exhausted as the adrenaline left him, listening to the crowd's oohs and aahs, saying little to Fleur and Krum. Potter went last, and entered the tent looking rather shaken, quickly exiting to receive his scores. When he returned, Warrington noted the broom in his hand.
"So, you flew." It wasn't much, but he figured the silence was more uncomfortable.
"Uh, yeah, I summoned the broom. You?"
"Transfiguration." In the silence that followed, Warrington studied Potter. He looked... tired. And fourteen. It struck him then, past the annoyance that Potter had been made a champion, that the kid was only fourteen. Merlin, the kid hadn't even taken his OWLs yet. He took a sharp breath, and Potter turned back to him, looking confused.
"Sorry, did you say something?"
"Um...no, I was just thinking about..." Warrington trailed off, searching for something. "the Yule Ball." Potter's eyebrows shot up, expressing no little bit of panic.
"The Yule what?"
"You didn't hear this from me, but they'll have to announce it soon anyhow. Traditionally, Hogwarts held a Yule Ball, and they're bringing it back in honor of the tournament. Snape told me because... champions have to dance. With partners." As he said it, Cassius began to feel the panic Potter's face suggested. Merlin, where was he supposed to get a partner? Sure, he talked to girls, but he wasn't sure he wanted to ask them to a ball. Nevermind, it was something to think about later.
"Nice of them to give us a heads up," Potter groaned. Warrington nearly snorted. Almost any girl, third to fifth year, he was sure, would go with Potter.
"No kidding." He figured the kid had fair reason to be nervous about it—fourteen was a scary time. Warrington was cut off from saying more by Weasley and Granger's entrance into the first aid tent, and he finally made his way out of the tent, met by Fawley, who appeared to have run from the bleachers.
"Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. You should be higher, Krum made the dragon break its eggs. You know Durmstrang though... Karkaroff gave him a ten."
"Chocolate frog card worthy. Really, fantastic. I guess all the first years you tutored really taught you something about Transfig, huh?" Pucey was doing his best to sound unimpressed, but Cassius grinned, seeing through it.
"It was pretty good, wasn't it?"
"Mr. Warrington, the champions are needed inside the tent." It was Bagman, the ministry bloke. Warrington was pretty sure his father had complained about him, but couldn't think what for. Shrugging, he waved to his friends and followed.
"I'll arrange a party tonight! All your favorites-I'm sure Malfoy will be happy to offer advice!" He was pretty sure Andrew said more, but at this point, Cassius decided to tune him out.
/
"I officially hate every person in this house." Cassius flopped onto his bed, exhausted. "I saw at least five different people spike the butterbeer with different alcohols. One of them was a third year."
"You're just mad that they ruined the flavor," Pucey said, rolling his eyes. "Don't act like you don't like the attention, just a little."
Warrington grinned. "Alright, maybe a little. But so do you two. And you're doing nothing to dissuade Malfoy." He sat up, looking Pucey in the eye. "Yesterday, I heard him encouraging a group of second years to continue their autobiographical play about my life. Does that idea sound familiar?" Pucey shrugged.
"I never told them to write a play. I recommended a song. You should really be thanking them."
"Salazar, you two do not know how to party. Even Bagley is still out, and he's our prefect."
"Yet you're here with us, not out there. What's wrong, Fawley, Davis dump you?" Warrington laughed at the indignation on his friend's face.
"I come here, leaving the party that I set up, mind you, to talk to you two losers, and you mock me? Alas for the death of chivalry."
Pucey looked up from the parchment he had begun to write on. "Fawley, stop trying to use big words. You're giving me more of a headache than this thing already did." Making a face, Andrew walked over and picked up the golden egg Warrington had set on his side table.
"Useful, this is. I personally love screaming eggs."
"There's got to be a-"
"Way to hear an actual message, yeah. I'm not an idiot, Cassius." Fawley shot him a scathing look. "Look, I know Adrian is the smart one, but come on. If you have to hear a message, and you can't, you have to change the way you're hearing it."
Warrington considered this, eyebrows raising. "You mean, listening to it through something that sound travels differently in. Encasing it in something, like how you hear differently in the greenhouses with earmuffs on."
"Water." Pucey had obviously given up on his paper, whatever it had been. The other two turned back to him. "Sound travels differently through water, it's the most logical answer. You'll need a body of water big enough that you can be totally submerged."
"So what, I'm supposed to jump in the lake when it's almost December? Yeah, no way."
It's been forever since I updated... School has a way of, well, getting in the way. Hopefully the next chapter will be up soon! This isn't going to be a super long fic (obviously, since we're almost at Christmas already), so bear with me. In the future, expect: Yule Ball date drama, friendship worries, an awkward encounter, and maybe even some snippets of a play about our hero himself.
As always, please give advice in reviews!