Heyy again! Thanks for all your reviews ! They made me so happy again. :) I really enjoyed writing this chapter, so I hope you enjoy reading it too! :D

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The First Task

"What is the meaning of this, Malfoy?" Ankher demands, his eyes narrowed dangerously as he glares hatefully at the two of us.

"Ever considered, sir," I say, pronouncing the last word as an insult, "that he might not have anything to do with this?"

We are sitting in the large, gloomy room that was hidden behind the red curtain. It's a very dark, damp room with hardly any furnishings in it apart from a few benches placed in a circle in the center of it. You would think they would have a more luxurious place for the Triwizard champions, but apparently the only luxury Durmstrang can manage is running water and the occasional warming spell.

"No, I had not considered that, Ms. Weasley, because I see no reason for the cup to have chosen a moronic witch like you apart from being tricked." Ankhel replies haughtily. Luna's eyes widen.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Ankher, but I do not appreciate you insulting my students in such a way." She says coldly, glaring at the norwegian headmaster.

"Zis is ridicule!" Madame Prunelle snaps. The new Beauxbatons headmaster is practically the polar opposite of the old one, Hagrids wife. Whilst Madame Maxime is absolutely huge, and rather... ummm, large, Madame Prunelle is tall and skinny, with long, elegant, legs which are only rendered longer by the enormously high heels she constantly wears. She's stunningly pretty, and surprisingly young for a school headmaster, at about 30 years old. She's also, however, incredibly stuck up and haughty, which I hate.

"I don't see what's so ridicule about it." I reply, doing a high pitched imitation of her voice when I quote her, "The cup chose it's champions, so we should just get on with this stupid tournament and stop arguing about it."

"Well you would say that, seeing as you arre one of the champions." Prunelle bitches, crossing her arms and tapping a foot impatiently. I can feel my teeth grinding together in frustration.

"Actually, Madame, Rose is absolutely right, there is no point arguing about this, the rules clearly state that once the goblet has made it's choice, it cannot be reversed." Luna points out, her voice regaining it's usual dreamy tone as she terminates all conversation on the matter.

…...

"Where on earth was Aliza to see us off?" Albus practically shouts at me from worry. I have never seen him so nervous, he's running both his hands through his hair, and then attempting to flatten it moments after. He then musses it up again, and tries to tidy it once more. He does this about ten more times before I crack and grab both his wrists. He seems surprised to see me there.

"We get it Al, you're bloody nervous about this bloody task, but I swear that if you touch your hair one more time, you won't have to worry about dragons or trolls, but me." I growl before releasing his wrists and going back to fiddling with my wand in the pocket of my thick, warm coat.

The five of us are standing in a row in the middle of the snow, shivering as we face the judges and public, who, lucky them, are in heated stadiums with a glass screen protecting them from the cold and the elements. Unlucky for us, we're in the middle of a bloody snow storm.

Ok, I'll admit I'm exaggerating a bit. It's only snowing lightly, but the visibility is absolutely awful. As if the task wasn't already going to be difficult enough.

"Have you all understood?" Ankhel's magically magnified voice asks us, and when none of us except Arla nod, he sighs, "You climb up that mountain, find the one thing that's the most important to you, and get down again as fast as you can to beat the other contestants. You'll all start on different sides of the mountain, but get the signal to go at the same time." He explains, actually speaking in english this time as opposed to norwegian. I suspect that he only spoke in norwegian at first in the hope that we would vaguely understand and nod, giving his contestant more chance to win. Horrid, evil headmaster!

Before we have a chance to ask any questions, or even show that we understood, I feel myself being whisked into the air, and then experience that awful, squeezing feeling around your stomach and the dizzying rush of colors you get when you apparate. I stumble as I hit the ground again, and immediately look around. All I see is white.

I scan the view in front of me again, but still I can't see anything other than a long expanse of snow. Panicked, I turn around, and almost scream when I find myself face to face with a huge, grey monster.

Obviously, I feel supremely dumb when I realise that the "monster" is only a large boulder.

I trudge around it, dragging my feet through the thick snow as fast as I can, dreading that Mr. Ankher might have sent me to some far off place in say... Alaska, to get rid of me. I sigh with relief when I see the mountain I'm supposed to climb towering up into the sky as I emerge from behind the boulder. A loud blare sounds from the distance, announcing the start of the task, and I set off at a determined pace towards the mountain, clutching my wand tightly in my coat.

…...

I haven't been walking for longer than five minutes when I realise that I will never be able to walk all the way up the mountain without dying from exhaustion. I continue to drag my feet through the snow, however, as I have no idea how else I can get up. We're too far away from the castle for me to do a summoning charm, and frankly, I have no idea what else I could use to climb this bloody mountain.

…...

Ten minutes after my realisation, I still have no idea how to hurry up my progress, and, on top of that, I'm absolutely freezing. I take out my wand and attempt to conjure up a jar, but end up with a kind of wonky glass container. I deem it close enough to a jar to suit my needs, and create my mom's speciality, which she taught to me the moment I got my wand in first year, so that I got as good, if not better, than her at creating them. Bluebell flames appear in my "jar", warming me up considerably, and I clutch them close to myself for warmth. To my delight, I find that the flames also melt the snow in front of me a tiny bit, so that it's not quite as arduous to walk through it.

I grin at my own genius and quicken my pace.

A few minutes later, when I find myself slowing down again, I hear what sounds like a... trumpet? I freeze.

The sound comes again, louder this time, and is closely followed by a sound like one of those muggle vacuum cleaners.

I scan the view around me as the noise persists, randomly getting louder or quitter, and I see a dark, rocky cave amongst all the white. The noise appears to be coming from there.

Way too curious for my own good, I extinguish my flames and tuck the empty jar into a pocket before approaching the cave, my wand at the ready in front of me. I notice my wand is shaking, but can you blame me for being terrified? I finally arrive at the mouth of the cave and nervously peek around the corner, expecting some sort of monster to suddenly leap out at me. What I see makes my mouth drop open from surprise.

A dragon.

In dragon terms, he's actually quite small, not quite a baby but probably a child. When I say small, I mean about the size of a small cottage, like the one that Hagrid had before he got a bigger house for him and Madame Maxime.

The monster is fast asleep, and the sounds I had been hearing are him... snoring! Since when do dragons snore?

This dragon is a a murky shade of brown, and has a row of small ridges on his neck and lower back. It's curled into a ball as it sleeps, and every time it breathes out, a thin red tongue flickers out of his mouth. It's actually kind of cute, in a scary way, if that makes any sense, I can understand why Hagrid likes dragons so much.

I think back to everything Uncle Charlie told me about dragons, and realise that I never actually listened to him, which, needless to say, I regret immensely now. All I know is that it's a Norwegian Ridgeback, and you don't exactly have to be a genius to figure that out when you're in Norway. There is one story, however, that I payed particular attention to. It was a few years ago, and Charlie was telling us about a friend of his that had managed to ride a young dragon.

It is probably the stupidest idea I have ever had, but hey, this is the Triwizard Tournament, at least it will make the public happy.

…...

Half an hour later, I return to the cave, having conjured up some reasonably decent reins, and gratefully note that my dragon hasn't woken up yet. Time to put my plan into action.

Apparently, riding a dragon is just like riding a horse, albeit a bloodthirsty, flying and fire spewing one. Unfortunately, I've never ridden a horse before either. Oh well, there's a first for everything. I made my reins as simple to put on as possible, with only the bite and the cords. The bite will obviously be the difficult part. With horses, the most important part of the bridle is the bite, which you have to slide into the horse's mouth so that it's behind the teeth. The reins are attached to the bridle, and that's what you pull on to control the horse. In theory, it should work with a dragon too...

I use my wand to magically suspend the bite in mid-air, right in front of where my dragons mouth should be when he wakes up. Should being the operative word, and keep a tight hold on the reins which are attached to the bite.

I'll call my dragon Puff, like Puff the Magic Dragon. I think randomly, which is how I know I'm terrified. I only have strange thoughts when I'm scared in general.

"Puff" is curled into a ball, which will make it even more difficult to get onto him, I poise myself behind the curve of his back, slip the reins over his neck, and prepare myself to be incredibly reckless.

Draco dormiens numquam titillandus, I think, "Never tickle a sleeping dragon." The school motto. Oh the irony.

I tickle the sleeping dragon.

I just fell in love with my own chapter... xD I'm sorry if this chapter is too short again, I was going to make it longer, but this was just such a perfect, cliffhanger ending that I couldn't resist.. ;P This time, seeing as I got so many reviews last time, I'm going to up the reviewing to ten reviews for this chapter before I update... ;) I know, I am so evil... hehehe... x) xD

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DarkChocaholic