Duel Enrollment

Squid Game

Once everyone heard a distinctive set of heels clacking across the stone floor a clue was discovered. It was in the way Julian looked at the older wizards when Rita Skeeter entered the room. Julian actually nodded ever so slightly and suddenly all that tension seemed to disappear. At least, that's what it looked like. Maybe they were just waiting for her to join, but Cedric still felt like something else was going on.

"Today is the second round of the Tri-wizard tournament!" Severus announced and waited a few moments for the excited cheers to settle down before continuing. "This time we will all be headed for the new dock after breakfast and the people at Fly High News provided some underwater cameras so everyone can see what happens under the water." Everyone spotted the one crystal butterfly, which was perched on the staff table as if waiting for everything to start, and eagerly hoped more were waiting at the dock. "Since everyone should be well prepared for this round it will start an hour after breakfast. Now everyone, eat up."

Even with his stomach grumbling because of the yummy array of food Cedric couldn't tear his curious eyes away from Julian. Maybe he hoped to get another clue if he kept watching. However, after a couple minutes all he saw was Julian reaching down to pick up something. He couldn't resist raising himself off his chair a little, but was disappointed to see that Julian was just putting the book bag at his feet upright. It probably just flopped over. Without any obvious clues popping up Cedric just ate breakfast and planned to talk to Julian later.

Finally, the meal finished and Cedric immediately left his table the second he saw that Julian had finished eating and was going to leave the room, "Hi, Julian! What's happening this time?" He asked curiously and he noticed two things. One was that Julian occasionally glanced at Rita and the tiny occamy in the blonde hair seemed to never lose sight of the reporter. The second thing was that Draco Malfoy also seemed to subtly glare at Rita!

Julian looked at Cedric, though Tanzania kept watching Rita, and smiled, "Hey, Cedric! I have some textbooks if you want to look at them!"

"Really?" Cedric exclaimed and in his excitement he momentarily forgot about the weird things going on in favor of doing a little learning. To his surprise an annoyed Draco and his furry familiar insisted on joining the study group. "Hi-"

"You're lucky you were the only one who had any sense of fair play." Draco huffed as they settled on a dry spot close to the dock so they wouldn't miss a second of the tournament.

Julian sighed as he sat down, "Draco, we really need to discuss the jealousy thing." He teased though he knew Draco was being harsh because he was on edge about everything going on behind the scenes.

Cedric blinked in confusion, but when he saw Draco's face turn bright red he couldn't help but laugh, "Well Julian is cute. Maybe we should both date him when we're older." He commented to tease Draco though he admittedly liked the sound of Julian's laugh.

"Seriously? A family of four might be too complicated." Draco murmured, a little annoyed at being flustered so easily and Sasha wasn't helping by mentally sending him images of the possible future 'pack and puppies' as she put it.

"Four?" Cedric pondered when he pondered how that number came up.

The blonde green eyed wizard chuckled, "Tom will be so happy that you included him!"

Draco blushed and dragged out a textbook, "Maybe we should focus on studying." He muttered clearly wanting a change of topic.

With the books finally being removed from the confines of the book bag Cedric realized he was missing a lot, "Wow ... just wow! You're already learning this stuff? No wonder you weren't worried about dragons."

"Yep! Actually that bubble spell is the first level to all these powerful shield spells. It's helpful with learning light spells. The ability to transfer your image from bubble to bubble is why it's taught as a safety spell. A great way to distract a lot of creatures." Julian explained and showed some pictures in the textbook.