My Love ✧ George Weasley

45 - The First Task

Adriana

As I entered, I saw the faces belonging to the hundreds upon hundreds of pairs of feet I heard earlier. I sort of froze in fear for a moment, my mind going blank as I looked at all the people watching me.

I quickly snapped out of it when I spotted George in the crowd, who gave me a smile and a thumbs up. I attempted to smile back, but it came out as a grimace instead.

I then looked at the center of the enclosure I had entered and saw the real life, giant version of the tiny model dragon I was holding only moments earlier.

The Swedish Short-Snout looked kind of... peaceful, just laying there, protecting its eggs. I almost turned around and just left the dragon there, undisturbed and unharmed, but stopped myself. I had to do this. I put my name in that goblet. I'm going to do these damn tasks.

Since the dragon was already calm, I decided I would try and keep it that way. I slowly made my way toward the dragon, being as silent as I could.

My tactic was working for a moment, until the crowd around me made a great deal of noise. For what reason, I was unsure of, but they chose the absolute worst time to do so.

The dragon instantly perked up at the sudden noise, and noticed me in the process. It became angered as it leapt up and shot fire at me. I had only a split second to jump behind a rock before the flames reached me. I felt the heat from the fire as it hit the rock.

I stayed frozen there for a moment, my mind going blank again as all ideas Cedric, George, and I had pieced together the night before left me. I cursed before I remembered one idea, the one George had said was the best one we had.

I peered around the rock, and saw the dragon angrily circling its eggs, searching for any sign of movement. I studied all the other rocks around the enclosure, and set my sights on one in particular that would be best to Transfigure into some creature. It wasn't too far away from where I was hidden, but I wasn't close enough to be able to Transfigure it. I would have to make a run for it and duck behind one of the other rocks near it.

I went back to being fully hidden from the dragon, and prepared myself by taking a deep breath, before I sprinted out from behind the rock. I felt flames just barely lick my legs as I landed behind another rock. I stayed there as the dragon shot more flames, before going back to circling its eggs.

I looked to the rock on my right, aimed my wand at it, and put all my energy into Transfiguring it into a creature. That creature, I decided, would be a dog. Would a dog distract a dragon, I wasn't sure, but a dog was the only animal I could think of at that moment.

Once the dog was bouncing around, I looked out to see if the distraction had worked, and to my luck, it had. The dragon was very intently watching the dog as it walked around without a care in the world.

While it's attention was on the dog, I slowly crouched out from behind the rock, and made my way closer and closer to where the dragon was still guarding its eggs.

To my surprise, the bait was working, and I was almost to the golden egg, when the audience once again cheered at the wrong time. The dragon stopped watching the dog and focused on the only other thing that was moving in the enclosure.

Me.

I had no rocks to hide behind this time as the dragon shot flames at me. I jumped out of the way to the best of my abilities, but the flames still painfully met the left side of my face, burning it as I rushed forward into the nest of eggs.

I proceeded to grab the golden egg as fast as I could and ran, ducking behind a rock when I felt flames burn my back. I stayed there as the crowd roared and people rushed out into the enclosure, trying to calm the dragon as it lashed out. They successfully got it stunned and led it out of the arena as one of the people made their way to where I was still crouched down.