Chapter 28: The First Task

November 23rd 1994, Hogwarts

(Rose POV)

Rose Potter got out of bed the day of the first task as the first rays of the sun hit her window, she got up instead of waking up because she couldn’t sleep a wink. She was too worried about what her siblings were going to be facing soon.

Everyone in her dormitory was excited and looking forward to it, but they had no idea what the first task was. Dragons, are they mad? One of the strongest magical beings alive and they want students to fight them. She had no idea what they were expecting. If any of the champions didn’t know beforehand, they would die.

The goblet of fire was for her, both a blessing and a curse. She hated seeing her brother in danger but she was able to meet her sister for the first time. Jasmine was brilliant, wise, and everything she ever wanted in a sister. She was very understanding and glowed when talking about magic. It was her true passion, magic. Her eyes lit up when she talked about it. She had a way with magic, as if it was a part of her or she was a part of it. She could do amazing things, things that she was taught were impossible. She was an amazing teacher; she could explain something extremely complicated but word it in a way she could understand. It’s only been three weeks since she met her and she already adored her sister.

Nathan, for some reason, was very uncomfortable around her. Rose could tell that he felt guilty because our parents chose him over her and it was very obvious. But he also resented her, she had caused our parents so much pain by rejecting being a part of the family. It’s very understandable, she had her own family and her own life and she was happy for her, but Rose secretly wished Jasmine would come back one day.

After getting dressed, she got down to the great hall to meet Nathan for breakfast. He barely ate anything, and what he did eat was shoved down his throat by me and Tracy, not that I blame him, nothing like fighting a dragon to lose your appetite.

They walked together in silence to the newly built stadium. Nathan walked to the champion’s tent where Jasmine, Fleur and Krum were sitting down waiting for the task to start. She wasn’t allowed in so she walked to her seat, next to her parents. She could not stop imagining how things could go wrong and becoming an only child in a single day. Thankfully for her piece of mind, the task was brought underway with Ludo Bagman’s voice echoing throughout the stands, successfully shutting up the spectators. He explained the task which was the retrieval of a golden egg from the nest of a dragon. A nesting dragon, are they insane? Where normal dragons not enough? They had to chose the most territorial and aggressive dragons as well.

She watched horrified as the first Dragon was brought in, it was obviously stunned and was being levitated by at least forty wizards in red robes. They must be the dragon keepers. The Dragon was an ethereal blue, almost silverly, but not quite. She drew a comparison with Fleur Delacour and laughed in her mind. She thought that she might have been able to appreciate its beauty if only it wasn’t about to try and kill one of her housemates. It was a Swedish Short Snout which she was able to identify because of the numerous books that she, Nathan and Hermione had been studying in preparation for this task.

She did feel a stab of sympathy for the Dragon as it was awakened by the Keepers. It got unsteadily to its feet and tugged at its restraints, but then Nathan walked out and seeing him obviously shook up made her pity at the dragon evaporate; A student, had little to no chance of killing the Short Snout but the dragon certainly had the capability to kill her brother. If she had to choose between a dragon and her brother, she’d pick her brother.

Suddenly, she saw Nathan walked slowly into the enclosure, it was clear to her that his nerves had now multiplied tenfold and he seemed to freeze for a moment as he cast his eyes over the ferocious fire-breathing demon in front of him. Did Bagman say something about the task starting.

Rose was now completely pale; her face was fixed in a horrified mask as she realized that her brother was the first to battle his dragon. She silently raved at the fates or whatever controlled their destinies, asking why did Nathan have to always get the short end of the stick. She hoped that the tactic they made for him would work. He couldn’t even use anything Mordred taught him since he wasn’t allowed to use the Sword of Gryffindor. Stupid wands only rules.

Before he even tried to cast a spell, the dragon opened its horned mouth and Rose watched in horror as bright blue flames shot out of its mouth and shot towards the Hogwarts Champion. He, thankfully, crouched down and dove behind a boulder into safety.

"Please Nathan, please, please Nathan," Rose had no idea what she was pleading for Nathan to do, whether it was to summon his broom or run as far away from the dragon as possible, but she kept repeating those words until finally Nathan raised his wand and while she didn't hear what he said it was clear as she watched his lips form the words 'Accio Firebolt'.

The plan was mad, she knew that, but it was the best they could do. Moody’s advice was invaluable and at least gave Nathan a chance to survive his encounter with the dragon. After all, flying was what Nathan did best. Even if he was cornered by the dragon, her parents had taught Nathan the conjunctive curse to use on the eye of the dragon.

She kept pleading and praying to every god that she ever knew for the spell to work. And then she heard it, the tiny whoosh as the broomstick sailed past them and stood quivering at mounting height besides its owner, Rose had never been so grateful to Sirius for gifting Nathan with the Firebolt because it had possibly just saved his life.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

She watched with mounting elation as Nathan mounted the broomstick and kicked off watching as the glee she associated with Nathan and flying appeared on his face. Rose sprang up in her seat cheering with the rest as Ludo Bagman crowed in amazement as Nathan did the thing that made him the happiest, which was flying rings around an opposing team, or in this case the Short Snout. She looked around for a moment and saw students of Durmstrang and Beauxbatons watching transfixed as her brother flew up and around the dragon’s head dodging as it spat fire up at him, she could tell they were impressed. But she only observed the stands for a moment soon her focus was back on Nathan and she cheered him on hoping he could hear her even though she knew that he couldn't.

She did gasp loudly though when Nathan miscalculated while dodging the fire and couldn't quite avoid the beasts long tail as it whipped up and scraped his shoulder but Rose recognized it as just a flesh wound and watched in amazement as Nathan did his best flying ever coaxing the dragon to expose it's precious clutch of eggs and soon enough, sooner than any of the others in fact, Nathan dove in as the Short Snout rose and he was grabbing the golden egg from the nest and soaring up into the stands and finally landing on the other end of the enclosure.

She sighed in relief, that’s one done. Only her sister remained.

It was only a couple of minutes later that Bagman announced that Nathan was fine and that other than some light scarring he was unharmed. She watched numbly as the judges awarded Nathan his points in front of a hushed crowd that started to realize how dangerous being a champion was.

Soon though Fleur's turn came to face a bright green dragon which was four legged with wings sprouting from its back, the Common Welsh Green. Rose knew this was the least dangerous of the dragons that the champions would be facing, if there was such a thing as a less dangerous dragon, but it was a nesting mother protecting her clutch so the danger would be very real for the beautiful Beauxbatons champion.

Fleur seemed to be composed enough and as soon as she entered the enclosure, she had started to flit this way and that in some sort of dance and started singing. Rose soon realized it was very similar to the way that the veela had danced at the Quidditch World Cup only instead of enthralling the audience it was apparently putting the dragon to sleep. The trick did seem to work well enough and the dragon slowly fell with a loud crash to the ground clearing Fleur's path but as she reached her goal a jet of fire snorted out of the dragon’s nostril as it snored and it lit Fleur's skirt on fire, she quickly put the flame put with her wand and grabbed the egg dodging a second snort of flames and escaping the enclosure victorious if a little shook up.

Viktor Krum’s turn took lesser time than Fleur's did, as soon as he entered the enclosure, he shot at the Chinese Fireball a spell straight in its eyes and it immediately started roaring in agony at what was obviously a very painful irritating in its eyes. Now of course since it couldn't see Krum it couldn't attack it but it did stagger about dangerously as Krum edged closer to try and slip the egg past it, however it did unfortunately crush a lot of its own eggs while it was staggering all over the place. The judges took points off for that since he wasn't supposed to damage those eggs despite escaping unscathed, Karkaroff though in a blatant shown of favoritism awarded Krum full marks.

She thought that the others had it bad. She was wrong. The next dragon was far bigger than all of the previous ones put together. The only thing she could think of to describe it, was enormous. The dragon was black, having bronze horns and spikes that protruded from its long tail, they were so large she felt like it could easily impale any opponent. Great, that added something else for her sister to watch out for.

But the scariest thing about that dragon wasn’t its size but the intelligence in its eyes. You could tell that the other dragons were beasts and this one was a true representation of the powerful magical beings of legends, and her young were being threatened and she was angry. Jasmine was fighting a Hungarian Horntail.

Like the others, Jasmine walked into the enclosure but she didn’t look scared or even bothered. She didn’t even change her normal attire. Leather jacket, shirt and jeans. She walked in front of the dragon, not even bothering to get cover. Both she and the dragon kept staring at each other, waiting for the other to attack.

Suddenly, the dragon and breathed black flames towards her sister. To the shock of everyone, Jasmine didn’t move out of the way but with a twitch of her wand, created a giant flying glowing rune in front of her. She didn’t understand what it meant, she just started with those yesterday, but from the look of Dumbledore and Professor Babbling, the runes professor, it was impressive.

The flames were repelled by the runes and dissipated to the side. It was like a wizard protecting himself with a protego against an incendio. The dragon noticed that her attacks didn’t work and tried to attack Jasmine physically with her tail. Jasmine pointed her wands downwards and another rune lit up under her feet. Suddenly, she was propelled into the air, dodging the dragon’s attack and instead of plummeting into the ground, she was hopping in the air. Well, it’s not exactly that, she was creating floating platforms made of glowing runes to support her. She jumped into the air, dodging another tail attack from the dragon and climbed on top of the tail. As she ran all the way to the dragon’s head, the creature began trying to shake Jasmine from her back. Jasmine reached to the top of the dragon’s head and pointed her wand at its mouth. Countless runes came to life and took the shape of a glowing chain that wrapped around the dragon’s head and tightened around its maw. It fused and turned into a somewhat like glowing muzzle. I guess that’s what she meant when she talked about the power of runes.

She then created another floating rune around her and jumped from the top of the dragon’s head. The rune dissolved into a powerful gust of wind that pushed the dragon away and sent it head first into the wall of the enclosure. Jasmine stopped right before hitting the ground, probably used an arresto momentum, and pointed her wand towards the disoriented dragon. Some runes appeared around the dragon and the earth started to rise, as if it had the consistency of a liquid. It started to trap the dragon, immobilizing its legs and tail and finally its torso. No matter how hard the dragon attempted to move, she was trapped by Jasmine’s spell. Jasmine slowly walked up to the nest picked the golden egg and returned to the champion’s tent.

The crowd was cheering loudly at her sister’s performance and Bagman was singing her praises but she knew that very few understood what she actually did but Rose didn’t care, she was just glad that this cursed day was over and that both her sibling didn’t get hurt.