Disclaimer: My lawyer informed me that Harry Potter belongs to J.K. Rowling.

About formatting:
Instead of footnotes I use double bold parentheses: (-( footnote text )-)

CHAPTER 3
The First Task

- And now, honorable ladies and gentlemen, hold your fire!
- And you, honorable dragons, hold your breath!
- Actually, I mean vice versa.

(That was Bagman's idea of a joke… well, as they say, "if one is an idiot – it's for life")

Seeing that nobody laughed, Bagman turned to Fred and George and whispered, "What's the matter? Was not it funny?"

"We think…" said Fred very seriously…
"That intellectual level of this audience…" continued George…
"Is not high enough to comprehend the brilliance…" said Fred with a sigh…
"Of your dazzling humor." finished George in a funereal voice.

"Never mind, then," said Bagman brightly and returned to his commentator's duties.

- And now, without further ado, I give you… miss Myrtle Warren of Hogwarts!
- Let me remind you, her task is to retrieve the golden egg.
- The points would be taken off if any of real eggs are damaged.

- Let's see how she would… hey, girl, what are you doing?
- It's my megaphone! Give it back!

Myrtle, not paying any attention to Bagman's protests, grabbed his megaphone and shouted,
- Rubeus, are you here? Watch!
- I know, you will like it!
(Well, Hagrid and Myrtle attended Hogwarts at the same time, so, naturally, they were on first-name terms)

Rubeus Hagrid, well known for having soft spot for dragons, stood up from his seat to get a better view.

"Well," said Ron, "It shouldn't be a problem for Myrtle."
- I mean, she is a ghost; the dragon-fire can't hurt her, right?

Meanwhile, Myrtle glided up, moved and stopped right over the center of the stadium.
She made a circular motion with her ghost wand and cast the incantation,
- IGNIS VITAE!
(-('Fire of Life' in Latin )-)

Three bright stars erupted from the tip of her wand and fell towards three dragon nests.
On the way down the stars sizzled and broke up into smaller stars (like fireworks).
And each small star gently descended on one dragon egg.

Yes, Myrtle was a ghost and her ability to interact with material world was very limited.
But her wand was of ghost tree and, therefore, increased this ability exponentially (or, should we say, essentially? or even ghost-entially?)

And one of Merlin's hairs inside her wand possessed the elemental power of Fire.
And now this power worked on creatures of fire, giving life to their cubs.

With loud cracks the eggs burst one after the other and tiny baby dragons hatched.
A few seconds later magnificent flock, led by three mommy dragons, rose up and flew away.

Three golden eggs were left lying on the ground.

"Wow," said Harry, "that was…"
"Spectacular," finished Hermione.

"Come on, youngsters," Myrtle said to Fleur and Krum, visibly enjoying bossing them around,
- What are you waiting for?
- Three eggs; three us; let's go.

And two foreign champions meekly followed the ghost girl to pick up their golden eggs.

Some time later.
To be precise, 16 minutes, 16 seconds, 16 milliseconds later.
(This is author's idea of humor…. And I magnanimously forgive those who are not amused)

"It was," declared Dumbledore, "a hard case to judge."
- On one hand, the Hogwarts Champion demonstrated really outstanding mastery of wandwork and successfully acquired the designated object.

- On the other hand, as some of judges pointed out (and he threw a contemptuous glance towards two Heads of guest schools), her perfect performance deprived other champions of an opportunity to demonstrate their own skills.

- So, after holding a conference, we decided to award each champion… 33 points.
- In other words – a draw.
- In other words – a victory for inter-school friendship.

He started to applaud and then students and teachers meekly followed his example.

TO BE CONTINUED

The next chapter will be, naturally, 'The Yule Ball'.

Myrtle informed me (the author) that Sybill Trelawney informed her (Myrtle) that her (Trelawney's) Inner Eye informed her (Trelawney) that her (Myrtle's) partner's name will rhyme with `carry'.

And who am I (the author) to argue with Fates?