Oh my goodness, I just realized that red dragons aren't exactly Japanese. Dear writing deities, I apologize for my reckless writing. I am so sorry about that. I'll go back and change it to something more culturally relevant if y'all so wish me to.
Chapter 19: Three Champions
Stiles looked back to Scott and the others, a grin stretching his lips wide. "Ready?" he asked, barely able to hold himself back. When they nodded, he returned it with a dip of his chin. "On three. Ready. One… Two… Three…" He and those of his pack that were entering their names stepped forward, reaching up and dropping their slips of paper into the goblet as one.
The Goblet's fire flared orange, burning their slips to ash, before settling back to blue.
Grinning as he stepped back, Stiles turned to Cora. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Scott go stalk still as a small group of the girls from the Japanese school entered holding small pieces of origami paper. "Where's Derek?"
She shrugged, watching the girls walk forward, nervously glancing around the hall. "I don't know. I haven't seen him since I told him we were all putting our names in today. He didn't want to put his name in. He didn't want either of us to put our names in."
Stiles sighed, turning to the doors. "I know. I'll go find him." Before he could take the first step, the girl who had led the Beauxbatons kicked the door open, the arm of a limp body slung over her shoulders. The Great Hall went silent, all eyes turning to them.
"The Hospital Wing, can anyone direct me to the Hospital Wing? He's badly hurt. I don't know how long he was out there before I found him. He's losing a lot of blood," she asked, her voice strained, but her posture calm, as if she dragged passed out guys around all the time.
"Oh shit, is that Jackson?" Stiles asked quickly, trotting towards her with the rest of his pack behind him, Scott at his side. "Yeah, this way, this way. Scott, grab his other arm." He turned suggestive eyes towards his best friend.
Grasping for the opportunity Stiles dangled before him, Scott scrambled forward, slipping beneath Jackson's free arm and taking most, if not all, of Jackson's weight off the girl. "I'm Scott."
The girl smiled over at him. "Allison."
One of the girls from the Japanese school stepped over, worry in her eyes. "Do you guys need help?"
Scott's eyes grew as he looked over at her. Stiles swiftly inserted himself between them. "No, thank you though. I think between us we can get him to Madame McCall before the idiot bleeds out. You're welcome to tag along though, if you like. I'm Stiles, by the way. I'd introduce you to the others if one of my idiot friends wasn't bleeding out all over my best friend," he explained quickly, pushing the doors open again.
The girl nodded, following after him. "I'm Kira."
Grinning back over his shoulder, Stiles said, "Nice to meet both of you, Allison, Kira."
…..
"Another one?" Melissa shouted irately as she hurried forward from where she was tending to a boy with puncture wounds in his arm. Turning back to him, she instructed, "Don't touch anything for the next twenty minutes. Just sit there and let the salve work. You should be good then." Eyes narrowing dangerously, she hissed, "The Headmaster specifically told everyone that the woods were off limits. Why in the name of Albus Dumbeldore were you all in the woods?"
The pack threw up their hands in surrender, backing away from her glare. "We were in the Great Hall entering our names. We didn't even know he'd been down in the woods until Allison came in with him," Ethan said quickly.
All eyes turned to the girl at hand, conversing quietly with Kira. She glanced up at the weight of eyes on her, stammering as she replied, "I was practicing. I wasn't aware that there was another person with me until he screamed. When I finally got there, the wolf was already disappearing into the woods."
"Wolf?" Stiles jumped in, eyebrows high across his forehead, "What did the wolf look like?"
Allison chewed at her bottom lips for a moment before looking back up. "It was large and black, if I remember correctly, and had crimson eyes."
Stiles exchanged a look with Lydia before immersing himself back into the middle of the group. The comfort and protection of his pack surrounded him as he allowed that fact to tumble around his mind.
"Well, if this bite is anything like all the others, then I won't be able to heal it," Melissa sighed, already waving her wand uselessly over the wound. Her shoulders fell, the fact that she couldn't help again weighing her down. "Ms. Allison, could you get me the needle and surgical thread that is on the shelf over there. Don't touch the tip of the needle please. Ms. Kira, could you bring me that candle." As the girls scattered to gather the items, Melissa gave her son a very pointed, knowing look before smiling at the pair. "Thank you. If you guys don't want to watch me stitch his skin together, I suggest you return to whatever you were doing."
"We'll be back later to check on him," Lydia told her, turning the others towards the hall with a flick of her wand.
When the doors had closed behind them, the pack, Allison and Kira exchanged quick looks. "Well, what do we do now?" Malia asked, crossing her arms over her chest.
"Movies?" Isaac suggested, "The school day is over, so we don't have much else to do."
As the others nodded, moving towards the Slytherin common room, Stiles pointed vaguely in the direction of the grounds. "I'm going to go find my idiot ma- uh, boyfriend. We'll catch up with you guys later." The pack waved him off, all eyes turning to the new pair accompanying them.
…..
"Derek?" Stiles called, skidding his way down towards Laura's cabin. It stood empty and unused, the gardens surrounding it flourishing, but overgrown. Deucalion had gently refused to use the cabin as his own, instead taking to living in the castle. So, when Stiles saw the smoke spiraling out of the chimney and light in the windows, he knew only one of two people would ever be there, and the other was currently snuggled up to her girlfriend.
The thick, wooden door creaked open, Derek poking his head through the crack. "Stiles? What's going on? Is everything alright?" His hair was a mess, sticking up on one side of his head with what looked like mud or something of the equivalent. The skin beneath his eyes was bruised with lack of sleep, as if he hadn't slept in days, which wasn't exactly a lie seeing as they had been sleeping alone since the first night back for reasons Stiles had yet to discover.
"Mostly. We were getting worried," he explained, mounting the stairs and throwing himself into Derek's awaiting arms.
"It's fine. I was just testing my new form. I'm still getting to know it. Why do you smell like blood?" he asked, pulling back to stare down at Stiles, concern darkening his eyes.
"Jackson was bit earlier," Stiles told him, looking for any blood splattered across his uniform, "Looks like our little pack just keeps growing and growing, doesn't it? Next you know, even Danny will be some kind of supernatural creature and Deputy Parrish won't even be human either and will come here to teach Potions or something completely unrealistic." He pressed his lips closed, taking a deep breath to slow down his mouth.
Derek groaned, turning his eyes towards the darkening sky overhead. "I do not want Jackson as part of our pack. That's just going to be a hassle and a half, but I guess we can't leave him to fend for himself."
"Don't worry, I think the only ones who actually won't mind him being in the pack are going to be Lydia and Danny, and maybe Isaac and Erica if he dances with them again," Stiles laughed, patting Derek's chest before slipping around him into the cabin. "You have some weird goop in your hair by the way."
Pressing his fingers to the side of his head, Derek pulled them away to see what had stuck to them. "Oh, that's just because your unicorn friends didn't particularly like me stalking so close to their territory. They kind of chased me off, and then some thestrals found me. They didn't like me either."
"Well, that's a shame. They're missing out," Stiles laughed, pulling a towel from the bathroom. He dampened it before tossing it in Derek's direction. "What were you doing out here anyway? I mean, besides the whole wolf thing."
"I just… didn't want to watch you guys put your names in the cup. I don't want any of you to get chosen," Derek explained, roughly rubbing the towel over his head.
Stiles mouth softened, and his eyes grew warmer. He stepped over to Derek, overshadowing Derek's shuddering hands with his own. "You don't have to worry about us. There's a very low chance of any of us getting chosen, and even if we do, we're all here to help whoever gets chosen. On top of that, we're all well equipped for the Tournament, don't you think?" He ducked beneath the edge of the towel, coming up less than an inch from Derek's nose.
"That's not it, it's just… there's always the possibility, the possibility that one of you might get chosen and not come back, and Kate came back. I have a feeling that's not a coincidence. They're all my pack, and you're my mate. I don't know what I would do if something happened to any of you, especially you," Derek explained quietly, leaning forward and pressing their foreheads together with closed eyes.
Stiles pushed back gently, lifting his chin so their lips were a hair's width apart. "I'll go have a talk with Headmaster Deaton about keeping everyone safe and whole, and finding out what is going on with everyone getting bitten. And whatever Kate came back for, if she hurts any of the pack, I will personally see to it that she regrets every second of that decision."
A grin on his lips, Derek pressed forward. "I love it when you go protective alpha," he whispered, breaking the tension that tightened the muscles of Stiles' shoulders.
"Aren't those supposed to be my words?" Stiles asked with a gentle breathy laugh against his lips.
"You'd think so," Derek replied, closing the distance between them.
…..
"Where'd you two disappear to?" Cora hissed, dragging Stiles and Derek down onto the bench at the Gryffindor table, the others sitting around them. Only Lydia was missing, explaining why Cora was such in a hideous mood. "They're choosing names tonight. Jackson is going to be in the Hospital Wing for the next few days, if that. Lydia is staying there in case he starts showing signs of turning. What were you two doing this whole time?" Her nose crinkled as their scents wafted towards her, fulfilled desire and sex and magic and the power of a mated alpha pair. Beneath all of that, she could smell the smoke of a wood fire and the overwhelming scent of Laura. "That's disgusting. You should respect her cabin more."
"You know she's probably screaming in triumph with Talia right about now. Well, they've probably been doing that for a while, but the point is that, what's the point of having a building if it's just going to crumble to ruin. Buildings are meant to be used, to be lived in," Stiles pointed out, running a quick hand through his still drying hair.
"But did you have to have sex in her cabin? That's just gross," Cora grumbled irately, clicking clawed nails against the table top without noticing.
Stiles reached out a hand, covering hers with it. Immediately, she stilled, calming just enough to take a deep breath.
"It's not like it was much different from the other times," Derek muttered under his breath, looking over Erica's blonde waves to where Kate sat talking to a very uncomfortable looking Melissa.
"What?!" Cora shouted, jerking her fingers out from beneath Stiles', horror coloring her tone and gold flashing in her glare.
Putting a hand on her shoulder before she could bust out her full shift in front of the whole of the Great Hall, Stiles said sternly, command ringing behind his words, "Cora, calm down. This is not the time, nor the place. If you can't control yourself, I'm going to send you to find Lydia. Do you understand?" Magic and intent skittered across his palm from his mother's necklace, lancing through her being.
Dropping her eyes, she whispered, "Yes."
Sighing, Stiles dropped his hand to back hers, tangling their fingers together. "Good, and I'm sorry. You can tear him apart later, alright. I know that Lydia keeping watch over a possibly turning Jackson has you on edge, but you need to keep calm. There are a lot more people here than usual, and Kate's back as well."
Rolling her head on her shoulders with her own sigh, she muttered, "I know. I'll try to keep calm."
Deaton appeared at the front of the Great Hall, standing to the side of his podium, eyeing the Goblet of Fire with more trepidation than a wizard of his standing ever should. He scanned over the heads of his students and the guest schools, finding Stiles at the end of the Gryffindor table. Maintaining eye contact for a long moment, he was only broken out of his reverie when Kate cackled behind him. His jaw tightened as he looked back at the flickering cup.
As silence descended across the hall, Deaton began speaking. "The night you've all been waiting for since the school year began has finally arrived. Tonight, a champion from each school will be chosen to represent their school in the Triwizard Tournament. This is a great honor, and for those chosen, whether you win or lose, you will forever be remembered." He paused as the flames of the Goblet were colored orange, waiting for the first champion to have their name spit from the flames.
The Great Hall was utterly silent, all eyes focused on the Goblet, all breathe held in anticipation of the first to be chosen. When the flames spit out the first piece of paper, a small accordion circle trimmed in gold, they inhaled simultaneously.
Deaton allowed the paper to flutter into his hand. Holding it up and turning it to read the name, he called out, "Allison Argent!"
Cheers rang through the hall from the blue clad students, Allison being pushed to her feet from the center of the group. She smiled shakily, but proudly, eyes darting towards the pack as she stepped up beside Deaton. Her smile only grew wider.
Shaking her hand, he called, "Our first champion!"
The hall erupted into applause and wolf-whistles even as the Goblet shot the next piece of paper towards the ceiling. The hall went silent as Deaton caught it. It was a small scrap of origami paper patterned with pink cherry blossoms against a periwinkle background.
Reading the name carefully, he called, "Yukimura Kira!"
The Japanese school, though more reserved and quiet then their western counterparts, burst into applause and shouts. Kira, who had been standing off to one side, jerked her head up in surprise, staring at Deaton in disbelief. Her schoolmates pushed her forward gently, grinning widely. She stumbled forward, bowing to Deaton as he bowed to her.
"Our second champion!" he shouted as she took her place beside Allison, exchanging surprised glances with her.
As the applause and whistles and cheers died down once more, they waited impatiently for the last name to be shot skyward. With baited breath, they watched the flames color orange once more.
Derek's fingers tightened around Stiles' as the last paper was shot into the hanging candles above, taking its time as it twirled and whirled back down to Deaton's waiting fingers. Resignation dropped Derek's shoulders a moment before Deaton called the last name.
"Stiles Stilinski!"