Someone to save me | Harry Potter

Chapter Nine

When I turned around I saw the one person I had been longing to see— My father. He was walking towards me slowly with his hands in his pocket, that soft smile he always wore playing at his lips. I jumped up and sprinted as fast as I could for him, almost knocking him to the ground when my arms wrapped around his neck. 

"Dad, I'm scared." I whimpered in his ear, my tears from before still flowing. 

"I know champ." He said hugging me back. 

"Can't you fix this?" I asked pulling away from him to see his answer. He reached out and wiped my tears before kissing my forehead, he looked sad. Not the funny carefree man that I loved so dearly. He shook his head slowly, grabbing my hand and leading my back towards the lake. We sat beside each other, our entangled—my head on his shoulder. I could only hear the crickets that were chirping around us and my fathers steady breathing. 

"I don't want to do this. " I finally said breaking our silence.

 "I hate that you have to, I have tried everything I can to fix this. But you're magically bound." He told me, running his fingers through my hair. "We will figure something out baby." he told me kissing my head once more. I could only hope he was right.

~

The weeks following the picking of the five tri-wizard champions were filled with angst and wonder. Harry and I were both so anxious about the tournament, we both rarely ate or slept even. Professor Moody was treating my like some special student for some reason, and I have a feeling it had something to do with what happened on the first day of class. I would sometimes look up from my work and catch him eyeing me suspiciously, and would award me random house points for the oddest things. Favoring the gryffindors it would appear, but I knew there was something else going on. 

The first task was approaching rapidly and the days that passed were worse than the one before. The Hufflepuffs and Slytherins took to sporting buttons that said 'Potter Stinks', I felt bad for him but since I have a sibling in every house they never said anything about me. Mostly since none of the boys wanted to wreck their chances with my sisters and the none of them wanted my brother to beat them up.

I had no clue what the first task would entail and neither did Harry. Hermione and I would take to the library looking up anything we could find about previous tournaments, but we had no such luck. I guess they figured that would be the first thing we would look for, for help. I had this nasty habit of biting my nails when I got nervous and over the past few weeks my fingers were nothing but nubs. 

I was sitting in the great hall working on my Herbology homework during dinner one night, when my brother came barreling over to me like a crazy person. 

"Whoa ,Damion what's wrong?" I asked as he fell into the bench beside me breathing heavily. I saw the girls around me were swooning over him like they normally do, making me shake my head. Lavender Brown was the worst offender and was constantly asking me to get them together, but I had more important things to worry about—like staying alive.

"Come on." He said yanking me out of my seat, not even giving me a chance to grab my things.

I saw Hermione grab them for me when I turned around, she was such a good friend to me and I cherished her dearly. "What is wrong with you?" I exclaimed as my older brother proceeded to drag me outside of the castle.

 "Just come on slow poke!" he shouted back as he let go of my hand and let me walk by myself. I was glad too because it felt like he was about to rip my arm out of socket. 

He finally stopped running directly outside of the forbidden forest, and at night it looked even more haunting than most nights. "Uh, Damian, we cant go in there!" I whisper yelled, looking back to make sure nobody followed us.

 "I know what the first task is." he said. My eyes went wide trying to figure out how he could know this. He nodded to the forest and proceeded to walk, illuminating his wand. I sighed, hesitant for a second before copying my brother and following along.

The forest  was eery and so quiet. I didn't like it in here. Hermione and Harry had told me all about their first year when they came out here for detention one night, about the creatures that lived in here. And if Ron was still talking to us I'm sure he would have made some comment about the spiders that resided here.

When we got to wherever Damian had us walking to I could see up ahead five large cages with lanterns on top. Damian and I hid behind two trees and peeked around to see what we could. There were dozens of men in uniforms trying to tame the beasts that were shooting fire at them. There were dragons inside of the cages, and they did not look pleasant.

Are you shitting me? That was the first task? Did they want us to die? An even larger unsettling feeling set in my stomach as I looked at the terrifying yet mystical beasts that stood before me.

Though one dragon caught my eye, it was really beautiful. It had lime green scales down its neck, and its body was a darker emerald green. I was in Gryffindor, where maroon was a very dominant color but green will always be my favorite. From where I stood I saw the dragon had green eyes, similar to my own. The dragon was the most rowdy out of the five, but the most beautiful in my eyes, and I couldn't look away.

When I finally did, I looked to my brother who was looking at me with worried eyes, eyes that matched my own. I was scared, terrified even that the first task might be the one to eliminate me for good.

"We have our hands full little sister." he said to me, his arm around my shoulder as we walked back to the castle in silence. Damian was right, I would definitely have my hands full.