Chapter 11: Huge Teeth and Swollen Brains

The month passed all too quickly for my liking. The time just slipped away. There was less than a week until the First Task, and I hadn't even begun to figure out the clue in the music box. It played some music and that was about it. I knew I had heard the music before but I didn't have a clue where.

"Hey, Potter look at these cool pins we got," Logan Malfoy called to me as I walked up to Potions.

The pin he was talking about flashed Braden's face then said cheer for Flout, the REAL Hogwarts Champion. I made a face at Malfoy.

"You haven't even seen the best feature," Malfoy taped the button with his wand and the button changed so it flashed the words, 'down with Potter.'

"What a lovely pin," I said sarcastically, "Can I get one?"

"Uh, here you go?" Malfoy looked thoroughly confused.

"Thank you ever so much." I grabbed the button and turned to see Celeste and Lauran snickering behind me.

"She is weird. I thought it'd make her mad, not happy," Malfoy said to Lily.

"She was being sarcastic you moron; she just made you look tremendously thick!" Lily smacked Malfoy on the back of his head and grabbed the box of buttons to hand out to people.

Malfoy pulled out his wand and flung a spell at my back. It missed me and hit Lauran square in the mouth, enlarging her teeth. Everyone screamed and dived out of the way as I spun around and retaliated. My spell hit Malfoy in the head, swelling it to massive proportions.

"There, now maybe you'll have some room for brains." I called, turning back to see if Lauran would be all right.

"Lauran, come on, let's go to the nurse. If Riley hadn't have ducked you wouldn't have ever been hit. The least she could do would be to reverse it, but no, she had to have her own moment of glory!" Celeste hustled Lauran down the hall. They were closely followed by Malfoy and Lily, the latter throwing me a VERY dirty look as she passed.

I sat in the Common Room by myself trying for the umpteenth time to figure out the clue. Then, suddenly, it hit me. The music the box played was the melody of an old song by the Weird Sisters. It was called 'Gargoyle Vengeance.'

I thought hard to remember the song's lyrics. They said something about an old man wishing he'd listened to his mum's warning about not provoking Gargoyles. He knocked a Gargoyle off the back of the building it was guarding and the gargoyle followed the man around for the rest of his life wreaking revenge until the man finally gave up and died. I know it sounds like a weird song, but they were called the WEIRD Sisters.

I guessed that the clue meant we would have to get by a Gargoyle to get something. It was well past midnight when I figured this out and the Common room was empty. I heard feet on the stairs to the Girl's Dormitory and quickly shut and hid the music box.

"What're you doing?" Celeste rubbed her eyes as she stared at me unfocusedly, "I thought I heard music."

"No, you didn't!" I replied somewhat brusquely.

"I thought- never mind." Celeste turned and started back up the stairs. "You'd better start learning some spells for the First Task!" She called back over her shoulder.

"Hey, Celeste wait!" I yelled picking up a button from the box on the table. (Greg and Logan had been trying to get the Slytherin buttons to say 'Potter for President' but they had only succeeded in getting them to go from saying 'Down with Potter' to 'Drown with Potter'.) "Here's something for you to wear on Friday!" I threw the button at her and heard a satisfying THUNK as it hit her head. Touché!

I strode past the stunned Celeste and went up to bed, ignoring when she came up a minute or two later. I rolled over and tried to sleep but I kept having visions of being drowned by Gargoyles, who strangely resembled Celeste and Wood.

Chapter 12: The First Task

"Oh, mother of macaroni and all things cheesy!" I exclaimed. It was the morning of the First Task. I was so nervous it wasn't even funny. I was sitting at breakfast surrounded by a disgruntled looking Wood, Chloe, Emma and most of the rest of the second-years. When I say most I mean all but two, those two being Celeste and Lauran.

"Nervous?" Wood asked. Apparently he and Amity had a rather large disagreement last night and had completely split up. Take that Amity, wait what was I saying?

"Mother of macaroni," was all I could get out. He seemed to find this amusing.

"You know my mum says that, I think she'd like you." Wood laughed.

"Yeah, well you can invite her to my funeral!" I exclaimed, "Make sure my mum doesn't show up though; I want to enjoy my death."

"What are you talking about?" Wood looked at me questioningly.

"Let's just say my summer wasn't filled with friendly hugs from my mum. Hey Greg, I want you to have my broomstick when I die, which may be sooner than you think." I felt like I was going to be sick.

"You'll be fine," Greg rolled his eyes.

"I can't sit here anymore. Anyone want to go down to the South Lawn with me?" I stood up, not waiting for an answer.

"I'll come; I want to talk to you." Wood jumped up a little too eagerly for my nerves.

"Talk to me about what?" I was way too nervous to be suspicious, but I had only seen Wood this nervous twice in my life, once when he asked me to the Ball and once when he broke up with me.

"Well I was just thinking that if this doesn't go so well then you may get hurt or worse," Wood said.

"Way to boost my confidence," I replied grouchily.

"Sorry, I just meant that- Riley, I think I lo-lo- I like you. No, Riley I love you!" Wood then did something he had never done before. He leaned down and kissed me, on the lips. And I must say that it was FINE! "Good luck."

I stood stunned as Spencer Wood walked away. That was a new twist. Wow, I think I liked this whole Spencer's on the rebound thing. What was I saying? I was going to die in like less than an hour and all I could think about was that Spencer Wood just kissed me.

Spencer Wood just KISSED me!

Wait, Spencer Wood just kissed ME!

Ah, touché Amity Marcellus. Of course I think he was snogging you for weeks. But did he say he loved you? What was I thinking! That's exactly it, I wasn't thinking!

Conflicting emotions whirled inside my head as I sprinted to the tent that the Champions were supposed to meet in. I was the last one there. Braden was pacing across the tent with Corinne following him. Brian was sitting in a chair fidgeting. I felt like I was going to be sick. I turned to get out of there when Mr. Jacobson walked into the tent.

"Ah, there you are Riley! Well then let's get started. As you have probably already figured out you will be facing a dragon. Yes, this task is similar to one from a previous Tournament. However, your goal is not to retrieve a Golden Egg but to rescue the captive from the Dragon. It will be a little while until you go out there but first we must pick the opposition."

Mr. Jacobson held up a large, velvet bag. He offered it to Corinne, who pulled out a green dragon with a triangular shaped head. It was a Robust Russian Ridgeback. Next Braden pulled out a Violet Vietnamese V-tail. Brian pulled out the Transylvanian Terror. I pulled out the only dragon left in the bag, the worst of all dragon species, the Mandarin Man-eater.

"Okay then, you'll just come out when the horn sounds then Corinne, then Braden and then Brian. Last is you, Riley. Let's try our hardest." Mr. Jacobson left the tent and started announcing outside.

It wasn't very long before the horn sounded and Corinne left the tent. I barely called good luck to her; the sound seemed to stick in my throat. I collapsed in the now unoccupied chair- Brian had taken up pacing- and fought to keep my breakfast down.

I officially decided that I needed to go back and relearn my old songs; Dragons are a far cry from Gargoyles, my bad. I thought about what the heck I was going to do. What the heck did Mr. Jacobson mean by 'captives'?

The horn rang for Braden Flout to go out, and then it rang for Brian's entrance. I started pacing the room nervously. I was sure I was going to die then and there. The horn rang. It was Showtime!

I walked out of the tent into an arena surrounded by bleachers full of people. In front of me I saw the biggest Dragon I had ever seen. It was about 50 feet long and stood about 30 feet at the shoulder. Its long, vicious teeth looked ready to bite me in half. I glanced at its long, muscular tail with huge pointed spikes as long as my arm. I didn't fancy getting hit by that.

Looking past the Dragon I saw that my 'captive' I had to rescue was none other than Celeste. I seriously considered not going to save her- just kidding- but I wasn't about to promise her we'd get out of this alive. The horn blew again signaling that I could start.

The Man-eater lunged at me. I had a panicky moment and then reflexes came into action. Don't ask me how I did it, but suddenly I was on top of the dragon's head. It looked around confusedly. I realized that dragon hide was so thick that it couldn't feel me standing on its head.

What should I do now that I was on top of it? I waited until the dragon had fully sat up looking at the sky thinking I had flown off somewhere then I slid down its back. Not the smartest idea, I know, because that large back would turn into a large tail and that tail had large spikes. Oh, well it was actually kind of fun. If you ever have the chance to go Dragon Sliding I suggest you do it.

I had almost reached the first spike. I leaned to the right to bail off but then realized I could dodge them all. I weaved my way in and out of the spikes- left, right, left, right- until I got to the end of the tail. I flew off the end and right onto Celeste.

"Thanks for breaking my fall," I told her rather rudely.

"Don't mention it," She shot back, "Listen I'm sorry-"

"We'll talk about it later!" I cut her short, "If want to get out of this alive then I suggest you follow me!"

I grabbed her arm and yanked her behind me. The Dragon was finally alert to our presence. I decided it was time to fly.

"Accio brooms!" I called not waiting to see if they were coming but commando-crawling past the tail. My broom flew up beside me and I jumped on. Celeste followed on hers.

"It's just like dodging through London!" I called back to a terrified looking Celeste, "Just follow my lead."

I shot past the Man-eater and dodged its tail as it swung it directly at me. Then I went into a steep dive and glanced over my shoulder to make sure Celeste was following. She was. I shot between the Man-eater's legs and weaved through the legs. The Man-eater didn't like that we were under it and got the bright idea to torch us. I veered to the right and Celeste, with superb Quidditch reflexes, followed hot on my tail. The Man-eater only succeeded in torching itself. We shot past the gate that signaled the end of the Task as the Man-eater roared in pain and rage. I landed and Celeste got off her broom next to me looking pale-faced.

"Holy- Did we just- And then we- Oh!" Celeste sat on the ground, hard.

"You okay?" I asked Celeste. Just then Lauran came running up. She had a huge grin on her face.

"They just announced your score! You got a perfect 10 from all the judges except Krum! Oh, and I'm sorry. I know you didn't duck when that spell hit me. I was just being stubborn." Lauran pulled me into a bone-crushing hug.

"Oh, Celeste, I'm sorry for chucking that button at you, even if you did deserve it." I looked at my friend who was still recovering from the shock of what had taken place in the last few minutes. It had seemed like an eternity to me, and probably Celeste too, but apparently I had the fastest time of the Champions, ending exactly on the two minute mark.

"That was a good piece of flying," Colby and Dean came up. Colby helped Celeste off the ground, "Are you okay? You look a little shaken."

"Let's see you fly between a Man-eater's legs and not get shaken. I'm surprised I'm still alive. Not to mention Riley's sliding down its back." Celeste was grinning though.

"You know, that was actually kind of fun." I said. Everyone laughed.

"If I ever get the chance, I'll go Dragon Sliding." Colby replied.

"Stick to Quidditch, you don't have to worry about getting killed playing Quidditch. Well, not as much anyway." I said. The Task had completely wiped Wood out of my mind, and that was saying something.

"You know," Celeste said, "I'd wager someone's trying to kill you. I bet they're not that happy at the moment. You foiled that plan perfectly."

"Yeah, well, I'm not so sure that next time it'll be so easy." I replied. "They still may get their wish."

AN/ And that's the first task! yeah, bad parody? be honest please. In case you didn't catch on, or didn't look at my profile, my marching band wonthe SC statecompetiton today! I figured what better way to celebrate than to update, write and read some fanfiction! you know the feeling, I'm actually thinking of starting a FA group, Fanfiction Anonymous, for those of us addicted to fanfiction. Lol, so please review! and thanks to my reviewees. I really appreciate you!