Fleur is fantastic, really. She tricks her dragon into a trance while she steals the egg. Viktor's methods are useful but much darker than Fleur's. He blinds the dragon temporarily, stealing the egg, but sends it into a rage so furious the mother reptile breaks all her other dragon eggs. Aline feels sorry for the creature.

Finally, it's Harry's turn. Aline and the others are allowed to watch him compete. Ellie squeezes Aline's hand as the dragon approaches Harry. It's the most deadly of all, the Hungarian Horntail, and its tail is strong enough to break stones around it into tiny pieces.

Poor Harry dashes about, so much that even Aline's heart skips an unsteady beat when the Horntail comes dangerously close to crushing him.

Just when all hope seems to be lost, Harry does the unthinkable. He summons his broom, and is he ever good at flying it. He puts up a chase that leaves the poor Horntail flameless-zipping through the sky paces behind him. Until it's not. And Harry swoops down to grab the golden egg in his hand.

The crowd goes wild!

They all won today.

-x-x-x-

"Amazing job Harry!" Hermione screams, giving him a warm hug. Ron and the Weasley twins are not far behind.

Harry catches Aline's eyes, looking every bit exhausted and overjoyed and over adrenaline-d. All is forgiven and Aline gives him a supportive cheer.

"We're all going out to celebrate!" yells Dean, one of the Gryffindor boys. There are whoops and howls and the crowd all but carries Harry to the castle.

Aline's heart drops, her breath catching in her throat. Dashing behind the outside of the stadium, she descends the steep hill and settles on a rock to catch her breath. She only needs a second before she rejoins the group.

Fiery and hot, she buried her face in her palms...doing her four corner breaths, just like Remus taught her. In. Hold. Exhale. Hold. And all of that over and over again until her heart reaches a steady rhythm.

But then her head rings and she's flat against the grass. Gasping for breath, she stares into the yellow eyes of a half beast. And he's snarling right at her.

"We meet at last, little cub."

Greyback. She chokes out, needing air like mad.

"You remember my name. Good. I haven't forgotten yours. Aline," he barks. "Whatever your precious Lupin told you about Hogwarts- one wrong step and you and your precious little sister will be ours again."

"ALINA!" It's Viktor. "You come vit us to celebrate?"

Greyback releases her and Aline stumbles to her feet, running up the hill until she's in front of Viktor.

-x-x-x-

"Volk" says Viktor, carrying her a glass of sparkling water. They're sitting in the guest rooms of the Hogwarts castle along with the rest of the Durmstrang boys, the Beauxbaton girls and the few friends from Hogwarts. It's quieter here and Aline feels herself relaxing into the soft armchair sipping the water. She hoped Viktor would not notice, but it seems he knows a bit more than she thought and he's starting to peice together her past.

"Back in Bulgaria, we know wolf is stupid creature. Always thinking about himself." Viktor lets out a laugh. "I do not know why wolf appears here in Scotland."

"Me neither," Aline lies, finishing the last of her water, all of which Viktor is too happy to replace.

She's not sure why Greyback is in Hogwarts or how he found out she was here. Remus said that Hogwarts would be a safe space where no one would ever find them and yet here she was, pinned to the ground by the pack leader.

Remus. Ellie.

Aline jolts up. "Have you seen my sister?"

"Little girl?" Viktor says. "She is with us no?"

Aline dashes around the room, finding Fleur and asking her the same question. "She vas not vit me. Before, she vas vit my little sister Gabrielle...but now?" The two girls meet eyes and frantically begin to look around the room, asking all around. Nobody from either school seems to know. The girls get together and head over to the Hogwarts Gryffindor wing, hoping that they had joined the others at the Common Room party.

When they get there, they run head first into Ron Weasley who looks bothered by all the noise and has taken a step outside.

"No, havent seen her." Ron shrugs. "You should ask my sister Ginny...she'd know where they are. She knows where everyone is."

When they find Ginny, she's talking to Harry, making googly eyes at him and replies with a careless "Haven't seen them since they decided to walk back to the castle."

"Alone?"

"Yeah," Ginny says. "I mean, what's the problem. It's not like there's anything dangerous out there to snatch them up. Tons of people outside."

Aline's face drains of color. "Oh my gosh." She turns to Fleur. "What if they didn't make it."

Now Harry intervenes. "You're saying that none of you have seen Gabrielle or Ellie since the end of the task?"

"No..."

"I volunteer to go with girls to find the sisters," says Viktor. "We go the same way we come-"

"-I'll go too," Harry adds in.

It's too late to interject. Aline has hoped that it wouldn't come to this...but if keeping Ellie safe and alive means revealing her secret, then she's going to have to take that risk. Werewolves be damned.