The morning of the first task was filled with nerves at anticipation amongst the 4th years. There were rumours flying around about what they'd have to do, and competitiveness was definitely spreading, although some groups were still struggling to get along.
One of these groups was Rose's.
Since her heart-to-heart with Roxanne, Rose had distanced herself from Scorpius, increasing friction amongst the group. Rose wasn't talking to Malfoy, and Lucy wasn't talking to either of them. Thomas was willing to speak to anyone, but Scorpius simply ignored him, meaning the former went around feeling hurt and morbid. This irritated Rose no end, as the way she saw it, it was Thomas' fault for trying to be nice to someone like Malfoy, who'd just get annoyed by his efforts.
So you could say that Hermione's plan wasn't quite working out.
Rose sat amongst Molly, Tracey and Albus at breakfast, discussing how the past month had gone, and wondering what the outcome of the day would be:
"Well, I don't have high hopes for my team. No-one's speaking to each other, except Lucy and Thomas," Rose sighed, messing with her bowl of cornflakes, but not really eating much.
"C'mon, Rosie, you'll be fine! You've got two brain-boxes, a real hardcore Slytherin and... and Thomas," Molly finished lamely,
"Yeah, right,"
"We're so gonna beat you lot!" Albus exclaimed. He'd started talking to Rose again since he'd noticed her ignoring Malfoy. "Me and Louis make a great team, Emily's actually pretty cool, she knows how to get on with people and is a real hard-worker, so thanks to her, we've got a lot of practise in. Flint's still a bit if an idiot, but nowhere near as bad as he was at the start of the year. I think he likes Emily, to be honest, and is trying to win her over by... well, by not being an idiot. What a charmer."
The others laughed, before Molly decided to give her view, "I think we might actually do pretty well, if Katie would stop being such a diva!" When the others looked at her in confusion, she rolled her eyes: "Katie Thompson, Slytherin. She's a right drama-queen, and spends all our meetings flirting with Nathan! Obviously, he's too busy being smart to take any interest in her, but it's annoying all the same. Then we've got some guy from Hufflepuff called Graham Collins who doesn't speak, he just sits there and nods when we ask him anything, although he's actually pretty good at making up potions and stuff." She sighed, "Still, it's not as much fun as it could've been,"
"Does anybody know where the first task is, and at what time?" Tracey piped up. The others looked at each other, then shook their heads,
"I was hoping Mum- sorry- Professor Weasley would tell us at breakfast,"
"She probably will, in a minute," No sooner were the words out of Al's mouth, than Hermione stood up and clapped her hand for silence. "Told you!" grinned Al.
"Good morning students!" Hermione exclaimed, "I would like to speak to the 4th years," There was a round of grumbling, as the other students were still jealous that they were not getting to compete in the Inter-House Challenge. "If all you 4th years would follow me now, I will take you to the location of the First Task, where you will meet with the rest of your group. Other students, please finish your breakfast and hurry off to your first lesson,"
As everyone except the 4th years left, Rose and Al received words of support from their cousins as they passed:
"Good luck, Rosie, Albus," whispered Lily, before running off after her friends, her short ginger hair swinging behind her.
"Yeah, as much as it pains me to say it, you'll do great, sis," Hugo assured Rose, before adding, "But Al will do better!" and then running away before she could retort. Rose rolled her eyes, but hadn't taken offence, as she knew Hugo was only joking.
James was next. He put one arm on Rose's shoulder, and the other on Molly's, and leant past them to talk to his brother. "Good luck, Al, dearest brother of mine, you're gonna need it up against these lot!" he gestured to Tracey, Rose and Molly, who all laughed, "No, but seriously, you'll all do great, I'm right behind you," he smiled, let go of their shoulders, and sauntered off, whilst Molly melted.
"Good luck guys!" called Fred and Roxanne as they walked past, Roxanne giving Rose a cheerful wink.
Tracey counted the cousins off on her fingers, "You're so lucky having so much family support in the school!" she told Rose and Al, who looked at each other and burst out laughing.
"Family pressure, you mean, Tracey," Al corrected her through laughter.
Before anyone could reply, Rose felt a tugging on her arm. She turned to see a pair of 2nd years that she vaguely recognised stood next to each other. The girl had light brown hair, which reached her waist in thin strands, and hazel eyes. She was skinny, but there was something about her that said she was much stronger than she looked. The boy with her was the same height, although slightly stockier, but definitely not fat. Rose noticed that he had her hair and eyes, before remembering who they were: the twins from the carriage on the first day of term.
"Frank!" she exclaimed, "Alice!"
"Hi," Alice mumbled, "We... erm, we just..." she trailed off, noticing that there were four fourth years staring at her.
"What Alice is trying to say is that we came to say good luck to you, Rose,"
"That's very kind of you! Thanks!" she told them, and then said: "How did you know my name?" as an afterthought.
"You're Professor Weasley's daughter, a child of those who had a key part in the downfall of Voldemort- everyone knows you!" Frank exclaimed in surprise.
"And our parents are friends," Alice added quietly,
Rose smiled, "Well, thanks again, but you'd better run, I don't want to make you late,"
"Yeah, ok. See you later, Rose," Frank said, before checking his watch and running out of the Great Hall, dragging his sister with him.
Rose turned back to her friends, to see them all looking at her in disbelief. "Please don't advertise the fact that you're friends with second years," Albus begged, "It does nothing for your, or our, street cred,"
"They came over to wish me good luck, what am I supposed to do, ignore them?"
But Rose never got to find out what the appropriate way to treat 2nd years was, as her mum began to speak:
"Ok, so, 4th years, if you will be so kind as to follow me, we will head towards the First Task." There was a scramble to get up, and not be the last one there; as one of the rumours had said that there would be limited supplies to make your potion with and there would be nothing left for the last group to make a potion from.
"See you later!" Molly called, as she ran off to flirt with Nathan Williams.
"There's my group!" exclaimed Tracey, who had got on with her team, despite her initial problem with not actually knowing them.
"Hey, Louis!" called Al, and ran over to join his cousin, yelling, "GOOD LUCK, ROSIE!" over his shoulder.
"Rose!" called a voice from behind her. She turned to see Scorpius jogging towards her.
He'd been embarrassed about the whole 'getting rejected' thing, and had barely spoken to her since the event, but had decided that he needed to man up and apologise. However, every time he'd worked up the courage to talk to Rose, she'd run off or suddenly realised that there was somewhere she had to be. This time he was determined that she wouldn't get away.
Rose was in two minds. It'd be rude to walk off and ignore him, not to mention bad for the team. But on the other hand, he was a foul-mouthed, loathsome, cockroach, who she'd been warned not to trust by several family members. However, her family may not be the best people to get advice about Scorpius from, as they were naturally prejudiced against the Malfoys. Maybe she should listen to him...
She settled for a happy medium.
"What?" snapped Rose, whirling around to glare at Scorpius, who looked taken aback by her anger.
"I thought we should talk," he told her once they were walking side-by-side.
"About what?"
"About... about how I... you know..." he trailed off. "You know what I mean. Anyway, I came to say sorry. I shouldn't have done that, I don't know what came over me. But I just wanted to say that I'd really like to forget about it, and stop being awkward, and then we can work together and maybe win?" his eyes were wide and hopeful, with a boyish smile on his face, all traces of arrogance gone. Rose liked this version of Malfoy. "I mean," he began to ramble, speaking hurriedly, "I don't just want to be friends just so we can win, I'm not like that, I want to be friends with you because I like you, not like like you, obviously that' d be weird, not you're weird, I mean it'd be weird if I liked you, because... I dunno, it just would, but it'd be better for everyone, everyone in the group, I mean, if we got on, and-"
Rose cut him off, "Shut up, Scorpius,"
"Fine," he said, arrogance returning, "If you want to be like that, then we'll just struggle through the rest of the year and-"
She laughed, "No, I meant stop rambling! We'll just forget about it, ok, you were shattered from all the revision Lucy was making us do, you weren't thinking straight,"
Scorpius wished that was right, but he was just relieved to have been forgiven so quickly and easily, "Thanks, Rose,"
She just shrugged.
The chattering 4th years came to a stop on the 7th floor corridor, staring at a door that Rose had never seen before, opposite the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy.
"Behind this door you will find another corridor, lined with identical doors. There will be the names of the members of each group on the doors, so once you find your name, stand by it and wait for the rest of your group to join you. Do not touch the door handle before I give you permission, or it will be an immediate trip to Madame Pomfrey for extreme burns..." she let that threat hang in the air for a moment, before exclaiming; "Begin!"
The door flew open, and the students rushed in to be greeted by, just as Hermione had told them, a long corridor parallel to the one they had just come off. Rose and Scorpius took a wild guess and headed right, reading the names on the doors as they ran past. Despite the fact that there would be no need to rush until the individual doors opened, the corridor was filled with students sprinting in both directions, crashing into each other, shouting, and general chaos.
Rose suddenly became aware of a voice shouting above the others; "Rose! Scorpius! Over here!"
Grabbing hold of Scorpius' sleeve, she dragged him towards Thomas, whom they had just run passed without even noticing.
"Sorry," Rose panted, "didn't... see you," she then noticed that she still had hold of Scorpius' arm, and let go of it hurriedly.
Lucy appeared next to them, already talking, "Hello, Thomas!" was her greeting, completely blanking Rose and Scorpius, until she addressed them all with: "I hope you're all ready to win!"
"Erm... yeah," was the general reply from the rest of the group. Lucy didn't have time to tell them off for their lack of enthusiasm, because Hermione clapped her hands for silence.
"Ok then, 4th years! I have only one thing to say: your aim is to reach the box in the room through the door. Good luck- you may begin!"
On the final word, every door that lined the corridor flew open, and the 4th years ran inside. Lucy was first, closely followed by Thomas, Rose behind him, and Scorpius bringing up the rear. As soon as Malfoy was inside, the door slammed shut, leaving the four in darkness.
"Are you all there?" asked Thomas' voice nervously.
"Yes, but keep quiet a second," Rose replied, listening out for anything dangerous lurking out of sight. She could hear nothing except the breathing of the rest of her group, the beat of her heart, and the splashing of water. "Lumos," she whispered, and the others copied.
Suddenly the room was lit up, although it still held an eerie feeling of something mysterious hiding in the distance... The room was long, and thin; rectangular, in other words, and the group was stood at one of the shorter parallel sides. About 10 metres in front of them was a pond, in which a creature of some sort was splashing about, muttering to itself. It was difficult to identify exactly what it was, but Rose stepped forward cautiously, becoming the others to follow her.
"What is that?" Scorpius whispered in disgust, as they got close enough to see the creature clearly. The only way to describe it was monkey-like, except covered in scales as oppose to fur. Its hands and feet were webbed, and it wore an expression of distaste upon its facial features as it waded back and forth through the shallow water, which only came up to its knee, despite the creature's height. Most peculiarly of all, however, was the depression upon its head, filled to the brim with water.
Something clicked in Rose's mind from the first morning back in school. Her Mum had told the 4th years a seemingly pointless piece of information about a certain creature, which had seemed completely irrelevant at the time, but now Rose realised that Hermione had put that random fact in her morning greeting for a reason, and was thankful that she had such as good memory. "It's a Kappa!" she exclaimed
The creature turned to fix two murky brown eyes on her.
"Oh, well done," it snarled, "but that doesn't change anything! You still have to get past me to find what you seek, but I bet you can't!" it burst out into cackles of hysteric laughter, swaying as if it were drunk.
Rose beckoned the group closer and explained, "You see that depression full of water atop its head? We've got to spill it somehow, as it's the Kappa's source of strength. Without it, it'll faint, or die, and we can pass."
"I'll do it," Scorpius announced, ignoring the surprised looks on everyone else's faces, "That... thing... the Kappa, it needs to be tricked into bending over, so the water spills. I can do that; it needs cunning and trickery- the traditional Slytherin qualities."
Ignoring everyone else's indignant reactions, and exclamations that they could just Stun the Kappa, Scorpius stepped forward and called to the creature: "Hey, you!"
It turned to face him, baring its teeth, and growling, "I know you wish to pass, but you shan't!"
"So, what can we do so you'll allow us to pass?"
"Nothing! Ahahahaha!" the Kappa shrieked, whilst Scorpius rolled his eyes.
"How about a duel?" Malfoy suggested, ignoring Rose who cried:
"Scorpius, no!"
The Kappa looked interested, "Maybe... but I can't fight on land, not against that wand of yours... you'll have to come to me..." An evil grin spread across the creatures face.
"Malfoy, no!" called Lucy, "It's a trick!"
Scorpius pretended not to hear, as he threw off his cloak and jumper, before rolling up his sleeves and trouser legs, and venturing into the icy water.
I'd just like to apologise in advance: I may be a while posting the next chapter, as we have guests staying, and I have to be social, which apparently doesn't include writing fanfics . Also, I have tests coming up at school, but I'll try and get the next part published ASAP . Anyway, thanks for reading, and for all the follows/favourites/reviews, it means so much to me! :D
And now you'll have to wait until the next chapter to find out how Scorpius' encounter with the Kappa turns out, but just be grateful it wasn't the bigger cliff-hanger that I originally intended ;)
Thanks again,
Lucy x