Frisk woke up late the next morning, and she didn't really want to get up. The memory of the failed diplomacy visit with the Forbidden Forest centaurs was still fresh in her mind. It hadn't been her fault, she knew that, she hadn't even wanted to be a human ambassador. But both her parents and Dumbledore had sounded so dejected last night, and it carried over. Between that, and the school still being on edge from this whole Triwizard thing, sounded like a pretty good reason to stay in bed. But her stomach convinced her to get up anyway.
When she finally did get up, she made her way through the common room, where it seemed a few people were preparing a rally for the Gryffindor School Champion, and headed down to the find the last dregs of breakfast being eaten. Ginny was sitting next to Hermione, and Frisk sat down next to her other side. Luna appeared a minute or later, just in time to see Hermione get dragged off by Harry Potter. He must have been wanting to practice something for the Triwizard task that was coming up that week.
"Hey," Ginny asked eagerly. "How did it go last night?"
Frisk sighed, staring moodily down at her plate, the remains of scrambled eggs and toast. "It could have gone better," she said, and went on to tell her all about the previous night. She tried to force herself to have another bite of toast, but suddenly wasn't feeling hungry.
"I'm sorry to hear that," Ginny said, but didn't add anything. Frisk wasn't sure if there was anything to add. "Want to go flying today? I think your siblings were interested!" Ginny asked.
Truth be told, Frisk didn't want to talk to anyone. Not even them. "Thanks for the offer, Ginny," Frisk said. "But I owe Ms. Pomfrey some of my time. I'm going to go see her afterward."
"Are you sure?" Ginny asked.
"She's not," Luna said. "But she could use some time to think."
Frisk blinked at her. How did Luna understand Frisk better than Frisk did? But she was right, and Frisk was grateful for it. So she smiled back at Ginny, "Luna's right, and I'm sure. You both have some fun. Oh! Did you go to Hogsmeade yesterday?"
"We did," Ginny confirmed, and Frisk felt her heart sink. "Well," she said, putting on her brave face. "Maybe we can meet up with the others and share something with O... Steve, I mean," she said, catching herself, but she could feel her face trying to betray her.
Ginny looked about to say something, but thought better of it. She stood, and let herself be dragged away by Luna towards the main door. Chara and Asriel must have been out there already. But that was okay, they should have a good time too.
Frisk was really hoping there would be someone she could help in the hospital wing when she arrived, something to take her mind off everything that was going on in her life, and the castle. But when she got there, the only person there was Madam Pomfrey. And that probably meant supply checks and sheet changing.
They chatted aimlessly as they did so, but for the first time since she'd taken this upon herself, Frisk was just going through the motions. It wasn't something she really wanted to do, but something she felt she had to do.
Her listlessness wasn't lost on Madam Pomfrey, who after about half an hour, was extremely direct. "What's wrong, Frisk? You're normally the most cheerful person I see all week, but today you've hardly said a word."
Frisk tried to fake a smile and an insistence that everything was fine, but her heart wasn't in it, The healer wasn't buying it, either, she put her hands on her hips and gave Frisk the stare that was usually reserved for students trying to mask some sort of injury or pain. She didn't even have to say anything to have Frisk wilt under her gaze.
"It was the centaurs," Frisk said finally, and, for the second time that day, told the story of the previous day's failed diplomacy. "I know it's not my fault, but," her voice faltered, and she looked at Madam Pomfrey with half lidded eyes, "but I wish had gone better."
Madam Pomfrey, looked at her with sympathy. "I can understand that. You don't have to be here, you know. You're volunteering, and I don't really need the help today. Go spend some time with your friends."
"But Opal's not speaking with me," Frisk said, the words slipping out before she could stop them. Frisk turned scarlet, looking down at the bed. She hadn't wanted to admit that it was bothering her. It had been nearly three weeks since Harry Potter's name had come out of the goblet, and the wounds still felt fresh.
"Opal? The Hufflepuff?" Madam Pomfrey asked in surprise. Frisk nodded. "You two were inseparable last year, and she was here when you brought young Chara, wasn't she?" Frisk looked at her, not saying anything, not able to say anything. She was afraid she was going to break into treats.
"What happened?" the healer asked.
"The goblet of fire," Frisk responded. "Opal is so competitive, she blamed Gryffindor for Harry stealing their thunder, and I've only seen her in Herbology since then, and she won't say anything to me," Frisk sighed. "I miss her."
"Have you asked your other friends to talk to her for you?" Pomfrey prodded.
"I have, but I never hear anything back. I don't know if she's avoiding them, too."
Pomfrey looked at her, but let the matter drop. When they finished, she was prepared to shoo Frisk out. "There's really nothing more for you to do here today, Frisk. Go spend some time with your friends. I'd like to go for a walk myself."
Frisk was shocked, less by Madam Pomfrey wanting to leave the hospital wing (which had to happen, now that Frisk thought about it) then Frisk being asked to leave. Usually the healer wanted to keep people in, and they had to argue that they were well enough to return to classes. This was the first time Frisk had seen anyone ordered out. "Are you sure?" Frisk asked cautiously.
"Go outside, Frisk," Pomfrey insisted. "I'll ask a house elf to watch the wing while I'm gone. In fact," she said, disappearing in to her office. After a minute or so, she came out again. "I'll walk with you." She opened the door, and herded Frisk out of the hospital wing.
They walked together down the corridor, through the great hall, and out into the cool late November sun. Frisk, giving up, headed to join her friends at the broom closet, while Madam Pomfrey turned toward the greenhouses.
The others were clearly aware of Frisk coming to join them, as she was given a thrilling, "Catch, Frisk!" turned to look, and just barely got her hands in front of her face quickly enough to not eat a quaffle.
"Sorry, Frisk," Asriel said apologetically. "But I'm glad you came out here! C'mon, let's go!"
Frisk looked up at her siblings, Ginny, and even Luna and Steven looking down at her. She hurled the quaffle straight back up as hard as she could, and went to get her broom to join in. And there was something to having to focus on keeping herself aloft, as well as the quaffle that they were throwing around that made it hard for Frisk to remember how upset she'd been feeling.
They went in for lunch, commiserating over centaur bullheadedness (Frisk had to remember to write that one down. Mom would love it). It wasn't until she spotted Harry that Frisk even asked about Opal. But nobody had talked to her, and she wasn't in the great hall to approach, and Frisk's mood began to fall again. They stayed, playing exploding snap, until Luna decided she had homework she needed to do, and they slowly went their separate ways. Chara and Asriel went up to the common room, Frisk was going to go to the library to study, but Harry and Hermione were there, as was Vicktor Krum and a group of hangers on.
Frisk ended up going back to the Great Hall, and trying to finish a star chart among the talking and laughing students, and mostly failing until dinner. Though Asriel reported trying to do work in the Gryffindor common room wasn't really any better.
Monday after dinner presented Frisk with the same unlikely choices, the library was overly crowded, the common room was a wealth of discussion about the next day's task. Frisk actually found the quietest place to study was, again, the great hall. It was even less crowded than it had been the previous day, so Frisk was able to claim the end of the Gryffindor table, and spread her charms work over it. She had been working on it long enough that she was beginning to head up to the common room for curfew, when she became aware that someone had sat down across from her.
The person was a well built older student, with dark brown hair, and sharp grey eyes. His was also tall, a good deal taller than Frisk. He was wearing the golden scarf of a member of Hufflepuff house. He was also wearing a prefect badge. But Frisk had no idea who he was. "Hello?" she said.
"Hello," he told her, and he was smiling. It was a warm smile, and it reached his eyes."I'm Cedric Diggory. You're Frisk, right?"
Frisk sat up a little straighter. Her first thought was that this was the other school champion, but then she corrected herself. This was the first school champion, Harry was the other one. "That's me," Frisk said. "Can I help you?" she asked, not knowing why Cedric had chosen to introduce himself to her.
"Actually," he said, "I came because I thought I could help you."
"Help me?" Frisk looked down at her charms book puzzled. She didn't need help with...
"Not with your school work, Frisk," Cedric said, his eyebrows raising slightly. "I've a friend who wants to talk to you." Frisk looked up suddenly, there, off to the side, stood the embarrassed form of Opal Oxtoby.
"Opal!" Frisk said, too stunned to stand.
"Go ahead, Opal," Cedric told her.
"I, I want to apologize," Opal stammered. "It wasn't fair to equate all of Gryffindor for Harry's name coming out of the Goblet." Her eyes darted to the floor before meeting Frisk's again. "And I apologize for what I said in Herbology, in the end, the Triwizard tournament is just a competition." Her eyes darted to the floor again. "It's not important enough to lose friends over. Can you..."
Frisk had stood and embraced Opal before she had stopped speaking. "Of course I can. I've missed you." Opal turned slightly pink, but hugged her friend back, and they both could hear Cedric chuckling, so they disentangled themselves. Frisk wanted to know what caused the change of heart, but wasn't about to ask.
"I'll let you two talk," Cedric said, smiling again. "Oh, and Opal, don't get mad if she cheers for Harry tomorrow. He's a good bloke that did me a favor this morning." He nodded at Frisk. "But I'd like it if you could cheer for both of us."
And they did talk, about Centaurs, Quidditch, and the last few weeks. If Frisk had to guess, Opal had been missing her group as much as her group was missing her, but hadn't known how to apologize. Maybe they'd roleplayed it. They talked until Cedric pointed out that curfew was in about five minutes, and they should head back to their common rooms.
Frisk started picking up her charms work, while Opal stood. "See you tomorrow, Frisk?"
"They may be cutting classes short, but we do still have Herbology," Frisk said grinning. "I will see you then," she put her book in her pack. Opal looked at her, then gave her a second quick embrace. "Good night Opal." She looked at the older Hufflepuff, "And Cedric? Thank you."
Cedric inclined his head, and stood himself to shake Frisk's hand. "I didn't know you went out to see the centaurs, that's something I wish I could do. I wish it went better, but good night, Frisk." They walked toward the stairs, Frisk heading up, Opal and Cedric heading down. Was it her imagination, or was Opal blushing even harder now? Did her friend have a crush on Cedric? Smiling to herself, Frisk continued to climb toward Gryffindor tower. That would explain a lot.
The next day was Tuesday, and after their morning classes, there was a rush back up to the tower to put school supplies away, then back down to the grounds, with only a brief stop by the great hall to grab a sandwich to take with them. Professor Hagrid was there, after he checked your name from a list, to route the Gryffindors into a large tent, from there it was a scramble to find seats. One large section had already been filled with non-students. Frisk thought she saw people she recognized from Hogsmeade, and she definitely saw monsters among them. The other side of the tent was an extremely large large opening, with several wizards moving among them.
"Frisk!" came a shout from up the stands, she spotted Opal, climbed the stands to next to her, and soon was joined by Steven on her other side. Ginny and Luna crowded in above them, Chara and Asriel next to them. "Opal!" Ginny exclaimed, "You're here!"
"Is that alright?" Opal asked.
"Welcome back!" Steven said firmly. "Even if it means doing laps around the castle on Saturday again." That got them laughing. "What do you think is coming through there?" he asked, pointing at the opening.
"Dragons!" Asriel said, excitedly. "There's going to be dragons!"
"What?" Steven asked in shock, "How do you know that?"
"He's right," Chara said, "Look!"
Being moved into the enclosure, slowly, was an unrestrained, bluish-gray, very large, dragon. Frisk stared at it, she'd known dragons existed for some time now, but she'd only seen them in books. And books, in no way, did them justice. It took commentator Bagman to point out there was a single large golden egg for the first champion to collect.
"And that first champion is here, Cedric Diggory!" A roar went up through the crowd. Frisk joined in. So did everyone else, as far as she could tell. It was no longer champions against each other, it was this lone student against a dragon. Madam Pomfrey was here somewhere, right?
Cedric's first try was some sort of simple charm, directed at the egg itself. "Now that's not going to work," came the magically enhanced voice of Bagman, "A summoning charm on the egg? It's not going to be that easy, Mr. Diggory!"
Cedric tried a few other things, but in the end, he resorted to what everyone in Frisk's group agreed was a neat bit of transfiguration work. He aimed at a large rock sitting in the middle of the enclosure, and transfigured it into a dog used to bait and distract the dragon, allowing him to sneak in and grab the egg. But the dragon realized what he was up to, and he didn't quite dodge the dragon's flaming breath as he tried to escape with his prize. There was a unified gasp of horror, and Frisk could feel Opal clutching at her. But Cedric was still on his feet, fleeing as fast as he could off the dragon's platform. When he did, wizards moved in to re-restrain the dragon.
As Cedric went to the healer to be patched up, the dragon's platform was magically moved out, and replaced by another, equally impressive dragon. "Do you think we'll get a chance to see them afterward," Opal said loudly, to be heard over the croud, once Fleur finished her task by using some sort of sleeping charm.
"Not sure," Frisk said. Frisk wasn't sure she wanted to, either. But she was sure that if they were available, she was going to be dragged over there by Opal... and Asriel and Chara. And they did. They were talking about all four of the performances. Everyone had pros and cons about all four of them, the one thing everyone absolutely agreed on was that it had been a missed opportunity to see Krum in the air.
The dragon enclosures were mobbed with people, students and non-students alike. and they had to fight to get close looks at the Chinese Fireball, and Welsh Green. Apparently dragons were a pretty uncommon sight in the wizard world too.
At the Hungarian Horntail, the biggest and angriest looking of the lot, they found Undyne, Alphys, and Papyrus gawking as well. Sans was there too, but he was leaning against a tree. His eyelights were out, and Frisk could hear him snoring."Aren't they fantastic?" Undyne asked. "I want to ride one!" Everyone turned to look at her, in a mixture of admiration, shock, and terror.
"That's one of your friends, right?" Steven asked.
"Hey! There's Frisk! Hello, little friend!" Papyrus exclaimed at about the same time. Frisk waved, and they came over to her.
"Oh, h-h-hi Frisk," Alphys said, pushing up her spectacles. "Toriel and Asgore are around here somewhere. "But aren't these dragons amazing? They're like something out of anime!" she said turning back to look up at the dragon. "And weren't the champions amazing?"
"They were," Chara said. "I hope they're all alright." Frisk was pretty sure they were. They had all been at the judging table afterward, anyway.
They talked more, and walked over to see the Sweedish Short-Snout. "Wait," said Opal, stopping in her tracks. Sans was in front of them, leaning against a tree, snoring away. "Wasn't he behind us?"
"Don't try to figure Sans out," Frisk advised. "You'll get a headache. Nobody knows how he does it."
"Alphys," Papyrus said, but Alphys was staring at the dragon again. Frisk could see her visibly sweating. "Dr. Alphys!" Papyrus exclaimed, "There is Professor Dumbledore! We wanted to talk to him! With the very large human!"
Alphys muttered something that sounded like, "I'm good, Papyrus, you can talk to him."
"None of that! It was your idea!" Papyrus said, taking Alphys's arm.
Undyne laughed, and grabbed Alphys's other arm, and between them they bodily dragged Alphys off in the direction of Professor Hagrid and the headmaster. Everyone stared at them, but Dumbledore greeted them, apparently politely. They talked for a minute or so, with Alphys making some excited gestures. Then all four of them walked in the direction of the castle, leaving Hagrid to go look at the dragons himself. One of Sans's eyelights blinked on, and wandered in Papyrus's direction. The other eyelight ignited, and he winked at Frisk, then stalked off to follow them.
"What was that all about?" Frisk wondered aloud.
"I've no idea," said Asriel, staring after them.
"It's getting late," Chara said. "And I'm willing to bet Fred and George will have a party going in the common room again."
"We'll be having one, too," Opal nodded, and they began to head back toward the castle as well. "See you tomorrow!"
