It was time for the first task, and Ginny could hear the roaring of the crowd beyond the Champions tent where the four of them were waiting. Eric was bragging and talking about how he’d crush whatever the challenge was while Fleur and Krum sat there annoyed, having given up trying to stop him a few minutes ago. Ginny was sitting on the other side of the tent.

She jumped as she felt something tap her shoulder. She turned and saw Jack and Alexa ducking under the open flap of the wall of the tent behind her. Before Ginny knew what was happening Alexa had given her a sudden hug. Ginny hugged her back and then they released and stood back.

“Good luck, Ginny. We’ll be cheering you on!” Alexa said, “We got little flags for you!”

She showed the sticks with blue flags on their ends. It had Ginny’s face on it smiling, the picture that had been in the paper.

Jack hesitated, but then gave Ginny a hug too. Ginny returned it awkwardly and felt herself flushing slightly before he quickly released her and stepped back.

“U… Uhm, Thanks guys,” Ginny stammered before shaking off the awkwardness of the hug with Jack, “I’ll do my best.”

The front tent flap began to open and Ginny quickly whispered, “Go, go. That’s them, you’re not supposed to be here.”

“You got this, Ginny,” Jack whispered, “See you soon.”

“Bye, guys.”

The tent flap closed and her friends slipped back out. Ginny turned around and saw Mr. Crouch walking in with a little cloth bag in his hands, the headmasters following close behind. Eric was blissfully silent as they all gathered around him.

“The first task,” Mr. Crouch said, “Is to steal a golden egg from the nest of a nesting dragon that is in the arena. You’ll be scored for the success in retrieving the egg and efficiency in your methods. The dragon is nesting on some real, very valuable dragon eggs, so extra care must be taken to make sure they are kept safe during the task. Once you have successfully retrieved the egg, the Ministry will subdue the beast to prevent it from chasing you down. You only have your wands on you?”

Everyone nodded, “Then let’s begin. In this bag are the four breeds of dragon that you will face, chosen randomly.”

Crouch held out the bag before withdrawing it as his eyes landed on Ginny.

“Ah, Ms. Weasley. A decision has also been made. There will be no use of your familiar in these events. It would undermine the display of your own efforts, I’m sure you understand.”

“I’m pretty sure familiars are considered almost a part of me legally,” Ginny said, “So probably I should be able to. But I don’t mind, I get that he’s too powerful if it’s supposed to be a test of what I can do.”

“Yes, well… I’m glad you see why it must be banned from participating,” Mr. Crouch said stiffly before holding out the bag to Krum. He pulled out a little figurine of a dragon.

“The Chinese Fireball,” Mr. Crouch said.

Fleur picked next, “The Welsh green,”

Next Eric, “The Common Swedish Short-Snout,”

Now it was Ginny’s turn. She reached inside and pulled out the dragon figurine. “The Hungarian Horntail…” Mr. Crouch breathed as he stared at her with a strange sort of pity, “The most ill-tempered and vicious of the lot.”

Ginny’s heart dropped. She got the worst one? Eric looked jealous as he stared at her spiky and angry looking figurine. While his was also intimidating, side by side Ginny’s definitely looked scarier.

“Very well, Champions,” Mr. Crouch said, “We’ll call you out in the order you were picked. In order to prevent the sharing of information, all champions who have completed their task will proceed to a different tent and will not return here. Good luck on the task.”

— — —

The other champions all went ahead of Ginny because she had chosen her dragon last. The dragons roared and she heard the sound of searing flames as well as the cheering crowd. Eric had just finished, the crowd cheering wildly as he finished even if he had taken at least three times longer than any of the others.

Then after a few more minutes it was her turn. She spun out her single magic tendril and took out her wand as she was led by a ministry official to a reinforced door. Ginny’s hair was in a ponytail like she did for her runs. She didn’t want her long hair to get in the way when she was running around. The door opened and Ginny walked through and saw the roaring crowd in the stands around her. She looked around for a few seconds, but didn’t see Jack or Alexa yet. The crowd was all cheering wildly as she awkwardly waved at them before refocusing on the massive dragon sitting on the other side of the arena, giving her an evil eye even with its lizard face.

The whole arena was rocky and had large outcroppings breaking up the large space.

It was crouched over a nest with five grayish mottled eggs and a single golden one. Ginny could sense the enchantment around the golden one, likely meant to disguise it so the dragon wouldn’t detect that it was different from her normal ones.

The dragon herself was covered in bronze and black scales. She had large spikes running down its spine and down to its tail, which was tipped with a large spear-like spike of bone. The Hungarian Horntail reared up slightly and flapped her wings so her front two feet slightly left the ground, flaring her wings out to intimidate Ginny. The dragon let out a booming roar before landing back on its four feet while crouched over the nest and eyeing Ginny with intense suspicion.

“Our second Hogwarts Triwizarding Champion!” Dumbledore loudly announced, “Ginny Weasley!”

The crowd went wild as Ginny carefully edged her magic tendril towards the nest while keeping her focus on the dragon.

“Let us turn things over to our commentators!” Dumbledore said.

“Alright, Ludo Bagman here as you all already know,” a cheerful voice suddenly said as Dumbledore took a seat, “Weasley and the dragon appear to be staring each other down at the moment. We’ll see what Weasley has planned, because if she wants to complete the task then she’ll have to get that golden egg right from under the irate Hungarian Horntail itself!”

Ginny’s magic tendril was almost at the nest by now as she and the dragon kept staring at each other. Suddenly the dragon’s eyes narrowed and it snapped its jaws right where Ginny’s magic tendril was. In an instant, Ginny’s tendril unraveled as it touched the dragon’s jaws. The dragon stared at Ginny with eyes narrowed in anger and an orange glow began to light up the back of its throat.

Ginny’s eyes widened and she dived behind a nearby rock as the dragon unleashed a massive blast of sweltering flame from her throat right where Ginny had been standing.

Ginny felt the flames divert to splash around the rock she was hiding behind, heating the air up to a sweltering level around her. After a few seconds the wave of flames stopped and Ginny could hear the roar of the cheering crowd again.

“And the Horntail goes for the first blow and our champion dodges expertly! What will Weasley do next? Does she have a plan to deal with the dragon? A fearsome beast up close, and spitting flame from afar! We’ve already seen three champions succeed, will our youngest of the bunch make it too?”

Ginny grit her teeth. Not. Helping…

She kept crouching behind the rock and tried to think, feeling with her magic sense that the dragon remained facing towards her while not moving away from the nest.

Ginny poked her head around the side of the rock and quickly pulled back as the dragon let out another wave of flames from its mouth just where Ginny had been.

Oh, why was she even here? She should just giiiiiiiiiiiiivvvvve uuuuuppppp…

Ginny blinked in confusion as she realized she was staring into space. What had she been thinking about?

Oh, right. She had to complete the task to the best of her abilities, no matter what.

What could she do, what to do… She was pretty good at transfigurations? Ginny remembered McGonagall fighting off crowds of students with flocks of transfigured birds during Ginny’s first disastrous Halloween feast with Eric drugging everyone.

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Could she do something like that?

She looked around and picked a rock just in front of her and focused on it.

“Oh, Weasley appears to be casting something? What will it be? Is this her great comeback?”

She tried to ignore the annoying commentator as she cast her transfiguration spell. You had to focus intently when shifting the rock to a different form to ensure the details were just right. After a few seconds of focus, Ginny managed to turn the rock into a little songbird that was sitting still and waiting for her mental commands.

Ginny ordered it to go to the dragon and fly in circles around it.

The little bird flew upwards and as soon as it left the rock was immediately incinerated by a blast of flame.

But the dragon couldn’t go forever right? Ginny just had to tire it out, it had to be wasting more magic with its flames than her making these little birds.

Ginny spent a few minutes using her magic tendril disguised as levitation charms to gather all the nearby rocks into a big pile in front of her. The dragon blasted the first rock Ginny moved with flames, but then stopped after it must have seen that they were just rocks.

The dragon roared in frustration, but didn’t move from its nest. It shifted to the sides a bit to try for a better angle, Ginny could feel in her magic sense. But the rock Ginny had hid behind was large so Ginny was safe for now.

“An interesting strategy, It seems that Weasley has something cooking in the kitchen! Having gathered all the nearby rocks for transfigurations, what will she do now? Even with all the distractions in the world she’ll still have to retrieve the golden egg from right under the beast somehow!”

Ginny got to work transfiguring all the loose stones she had gathered into little songbirds. She felt a little bad as she sent a continuous line of them to be roasted with bursts of dragon flame. But most importantly, after Ginny sent the fifth bird out it was not roasted immediately. Instead the horntail waited until the bird was almost halfway to its nest before destroying the transfigured bird in a single blast of flame.

Ginny started taking a little more time on the birds and ordered them to try to dive down when they saw the dragon’s mouth glowing orange. The more complicated the orders that you gave the little constructs when you made them, the harder they were to make, but Ginny thought this might be worth it.

She pumped her fist as the next bird she sent out dropped down and dodged the dragon’s blast of flame. A second later the horntail blasted the bird again and it was destroyed. But Ginny was getting there!

“What is this? Our champion appears to be baiting the dragon with her transfigured birds? We’ll see what the dragon does in response!”

Ginny kept going, transfiguring more little birds and sending them out to be destroyed. But the blasts of flame were growing more infrequent, some of the birds tweeting as they circled around the irate Horntail that was swiping at them with its claws to destroy them with a single touch.

Ginny kept going, until there were dozens of the little birds circling around the roaring and irate dragon that was going wild and thrashing to destroy the little birds that circled around it. The dragon appeared to have forgotten about Ginny in its annoyance at all the little birds circling around it. Ginny was panting slightly and her forehead was slick with a light sheen of sweat.

Ginny took her largest remaining rock and transfigured it into a large eagle. It took five seconds to create it. Ginny turned to the next largest rock and did the same.

“Ah, it seems that Weasley’s finished her preparations finally! The dragon’s good and distracted and now she’ll make an attempt at the golden egg!”

Ginny finished her fifth eagle transfiguration and decided that it was good enough. These five were much more complex than the little songbirds.

Ginny stepped out from behind the half melted rock she’d been standing behind this whole time. She mentally ordered the five eagles to take flight and do what she’d programmed them to do.

The Horntail took a full second to register Ginny as it kept snapping its jaws and swiping its claws through the tittering songbirds around it. It stared at Ginny and its jaws began to glow a deep orange. Ginny turned and started sprinting to the side at full speed, making use of all the physical training she’d been doing for over a year.

The blast of flames seared at her back and swept after her even as she sprinted to the next rock to hide behind. Ginny just barely made it, the flames searing the air behind her as she dived behind the rock.

The flames suddenly stopped and the roars of the dragon reached a higher pitch as Ginny crouched behind the rock outcropping.

The dragon had been too focused on Ginny and distracted by the loud songbirds to notice the eagles diving down underneath the dragon’s belly into the nest.

Ginny used her magic sense to watch as her eagles began to fly away from the dragon, the golden egg held in the talons of one of them. The Horntail had managed to swipe through and dissolve three of the five. The dragon destroyed them after cutting off the flames and desperately swiping with its claws and biting to stop the eagles before they could escape with their prize.

The Horntail roared again, but this time in defeat and resignation rather than anger. Another blast of flame shot from its mouth and destroyed one of the remaining eagles while avoiding the last one with the large golden egg clutched in its talons. The transfigured eagle dived down and with a few powerful flaps of its wings dropped the golden egg right in front of Ginny. She reached out and picked up the egg. A few seconds later the eagle dissipated into mist and reverted back into a rock as it ran out of magical energy.

“And she gets it! Weasley has retrieved the egg!” The commentator said, “Let’s stand by as our Auror team deals with the beast.”

There were a few seconds and the loud sound of spells landing on the dragon behind Ginny and then the creature went silent.

“And there it is!” The commentator said, “Let’s see what our judges have to think about young Ms. Weasley’s performance on the task!”

Sitting in a special spot in the stands was a viewing box where all three headmasters and Mr. Crouch sat as well as the commentator Ludo Bagman.

Madame Maxine raised her wand first and a glowing eight appeared just over her wand. The crowd cheered for a bit. Dumbledore was next. Nine. Ginny shifted while holding the golden egg with both hands, having put her wand back into the pockets of her clothes. The unconscious horntail was already being loaded onto a large sled and its real eggs were being lifted and packed away by a group of people in blue Ministry robes on the other side of the arena.

Was she doing that well? It had taken a long time for her to set everything up, she must have been the longest to complete the task by far even compared to Eric.

Karkaroff was next. He raised his wand and a number appeared. Six. The crowd muttered and a few people glared at him, but he scoffed and kept his wand raised high.

Mr. Crouch was last and raised his wand and let out his score. A perfect ten. The crowd went wild cheering and Ginny let out a smile as she finally spotted her friends waving their flags so hard that she was sure that the little things were about to break. Alexa was hopping up and down, carrying Jack up and down with her as they both cheered for Ginny.

“And that concludes the first task for the triwizarding tournament!” Ludo Bagman shouted, “And a resounding first place for the young Ginny Weasley from Hogwarts with thirty three points!”

Ginny froze. First… first place? Oh no, Eric would be livid…

“In second place, we have Fleur Delaceur from Beauxbatons with twenty nine points, using a powerful sleeping charm to put the beast to sleep and retrieve the egg.”

“In third place… We originally had Victor Krum from Durmstrang with thirty points,” Bagman said, “With the use of the conjunctivitis curse to the dragon’s eyes to send it stumbling about and allowing him to sweep in and steal the egg right from under its jaws! Unfortunately the dragon crushed several of its real eggs, so his score has been revised downwards to twenty eight points with a penalty. And that means now in third place is… Eric Potter from Hogwarts with twenty nine points! He not only retrieved the golden egg but defeated the dragon itself in combat by suffocating it into unconsciousness with a series of rocks tossed into its throat with some rather precise levitation charms. Unfortunately as impressive a show it was, the task was only to retrieve the golden egg unharmed, not to defeat the dragon itself. That’s something we've seen reflected in his lower score. And of course in fourth place is Victor Krum with twenty eight points.”

Ginny held the golden egg as she took that in. Of course Eric would do something like that… But third. Eric had gotten third. She could only hope that he’d take it better than she thought he would…

— — —

“Hah! I do not even mind, after all your talk you have gotten third place!” Fleur sneered as Ginny did her best to blend into the walls of the tent and not be noticed.

“Hey, I still beat Krum! And the dragon!” Eric protested, “Like you could ever do that. You just put it to sleep, no show at all.”

Krum looked unhappy, but also seemed to mostly be keeping away from the argument between Eric and Fleur as Fleur kept taunting Eric with how poorly he’d scored after all his big talk earlier.

“And?” Fleur said primly, “The task was to retrieve the egg. You were not even defeated by me alone, but a second year girl as well! She at least knows well enough to be humble about her victory!”

Ginny shrunk back more as everyone’s eyes turned to her, Eric’s eyes boring into her.

“Nope! Not proud at all, just a coincidence!” Ginny squeaked as she saw Eric’s magic tendrils start to unfurl from his back. The unfurling cloud of tendril’s paused and Eric seemed to notice them and let them dissolve. He stared at Ginny for a moment before giving her a nod and turning back to Fleur.

“See? Even she admits it. What I did was way more impressive than what the rest of you did either way. Crouch only gave me a six because he has it out for me.”

“Says the one in third place.”

“You…”

The flap to the tent opened up and Mr. Crouch walked in. Eric cut off what he was going to say.

“Champions!” Mr. Crouch said, “You all have your eggs, yes?”

They all nodded, Eric being a little more reluctant than the rest of them.

“Each of them contains the clue as to what your next task will be,” Mr. Crouch said, “You are to solve it yourself without the help of anyone else, including your fellow students or champions. The time of the next task will be announced after Christmas break. Best of luck. And congratulations to all of you for such excellent performances on the first task.”

Mr. Crouch left the room, and Ginny noticed a green beetle flew from the edge of the tent and landed on his back just before he left.

Ginny noticed that Eric was staring at the beetle with a frown on his face.

Ginny internally shrugged. Somebody really had to update Hogwarts anti-pest wards if that same type of beetle kept sneaking through. It was one of the advantages of living here at the castle, not having to deal with the creepy crawlies as much as she had to sometimes at home at the Burrow with their lower quality wards.