Delilah got up early on Sunday morning. She was so tired that she barely could get ready, and accidentally kept trying to wear her sock as a hat. When she was finally done, she sleepily headed to the Great Hall.
She sat alone eating until Draco came along, grinning. He seemed to have slept well.
"Good morning!" he chirpily greeted.
"Morning, why are you so chipper?"
Draco grinned.
"Just happy I guess."
Delilah shrugged and smiled.
"Delilah!" an anxious voice stated.
"Yes Harry?"
"Will you meet me in the library after breakfast? I need your help!"
She nodded.
"What do you need help with?"
Harry glanced at Draco.
"I'll tell you then. Thanks!"
He left, fidgeting with his arm. He always did that when he was nervous, it was obnoxious.
After breakfast Delilah sat at a small table near the back of the library and was soon greeted by Harry and Hermione.
"In the first task I need to fight a dragon," Harry immediately stated.
"How do you know that?" Delilah checked. He sounded sure, but how could he know exactly what the first task was.
"Well, we don't know exactly, we just know it involves dragons," Hermione elaborated. "But why else would they need dragons?"
Delilah nodded. It seemed a bit straight forward, but still seemed logical.
"So you want help on dueling a dragon? I'm sorry I don't have much expertise in that area. Maybe if you write to Charlie he could tell you, or just ask Ron. I bet he knows quite a bit about dragons as well."
"No," Harry immediately responded.
She raised a questioning eyebrow towards Hermione, who rolled her eyes.
"They've had a row but neither will talk it out like a reasonable person."
"Well, to be fair, they both can be pretty unreasonable."
"Hey!" Harry hotly snapped.
"How about we all just try to figure out how Harry will survive on Tuesday," Hermione suggested, hiding a laugh.
Harry nodded, still eyeing Delilah.
They pulled down every book they could find on dragons, and they all set to work searching through the large pile. Delilah grabbed a book from the top.
" 'Talon-clipping by charms... treating scale-rot...' This is no good, this is for nutters like Hagrid who want to keep them healthy...."
" 'Dragons are extremely difficult to slay, owing to the ancient magic that imbues their thick hides, which none but the most powerful spells can penetrate...' But Sirius said a simple one would do it...."
"Wait, when did you get to talk to Sirius?" Delilah asked.
"Let's try some simple spellbooks, then," said Harry, throwing aside Men Who Love Dragons Too Much. "I talked to him in the fire last night. He told me how Karkaroff was a Deatheater and that a simple spell would help with the dragon."
Delilah nodded as Harry left to grab more. There was a simple spell, she knew there was, but she just couldn't put her finger on it.
Harry returned to the table with a pile of spellbooks, set them down, and began to flick through each in turn, Hermione whispering nonstop. Delilah rolled her eyes but continued searching through the books.
"Well, there are Switching Spells... but what's the point of Switching it? Unless you swapped its fangs for wine-gums or something that would make it less dangerous.... The trouble is, like that book said, not much is going to get through a dragon's hide.... I'd say Transfigure it, but something that big, you really haven't got a hope, I doubt even Professor McGonagall... unless you're supposed to put the spell on yourself? Maybe to give yourself extra powers? But they're not simple spells, I mean, we haven't done any of those in class, I only know about them because I've been doing O.W.L. practice papers...."
"Hermione," Harry said, through gritted teeth, "will you shut up for a bit, please? I'm trying to concentrate."
But all that happened, when Hermione fell silent, was that they all seemed to not know what to do. Delilah got up to grab defensive magic books.
"While you guys look for stuff to attack the dragon I'll look for stuff to protect Harry," she stated in response to Harry's questioning look. He nodded.
By the time she got back Hermione was talking again. Delilah hung back.
"Oh no, he's back again, why can't he read on his stupid ship?" said Hermione irritably as Viktor Krum slouched in, cast a surly look over at the pair of them, and settled himself in a distant corner with a pile of books. "Come on, Harry, we'll go back to the common room... his fan club will be here in a moment, twittering away...."
Delilah sighed as they left and were soon replaced by a gang of tiptoeing girls, one in a Bulgarian scarf. Of course they would leave her to put the books away.
Delilah barely slept that night again, but luckily she didn't have any more strange dreams. When she awoke the next morning, she got dressed, met Draco in the common room, and sleepily made her way down to breakfast. Then it was time for Alchemy.
"Today we will be turning fire to water. The instructions," Snape waved his wand, "are on the board. You will be working in a partnership."
Draco turned, Delilah nodded before he could ask.
"I'll go grab the ingredients then, can you start the cauldron?"
Delilah nodded and filled and started heating the cauldron as Draco returned. They started following the instructions, adding and stirring the ingredients as well as slipping some rat guts into a bag to throw at Blaise.
Their potion (she didn't know what else to call it) was the only one that had turned the right shade of purple before they had to let it stew.
Then, finally it was lunch. Delilah stuffed her face before noticing that Harry and Hermione weren't there. She grabbed them two sandwiches, put a preserving charm on them, before having to leave for Herbology.
Herbology was pointless. All they did was prune Flutterby Bushes, which was necessary, but Delilah didn't like it.
At dinner Hermione came over to the Slytherin table. She kept her head up as a few idiots muttered the unforgivable word under their breath. Delilah glared.
"Yes Hermione?"
"Will you help me help Harry learn a spell for the first task, now?" she asked.
Delilah nodded, stuffing the rest of her dinner in her mouth and following her to an empty classroom. Harry was already there.
"Oh, hey Delilah. Are you here to help too?"
"No, I just accidentally came to this room that you just happened to be in," Delilah deadpanned. "Of course I am, so what spell do you need help with?"
"He needs to learn the summoning charm."
"Ok? How would that help against a dragon?"
"If I summon my broom then I will have a chance to get past the dragon."
Delilah nodded. How he came up with it was beyond her, but it could work.
And so they stayed there until well past midnight. They would have stayed longer, but Peeves turned up and, pretending to think that Harry wanted things thrown at him, started chucking chairs across the room. After controlling her laughter, Delilah turned herself invisible and headed down to her common room.
Surprisingly, Draco was still there, sitting on the chair near the fire, his head leaning on the side. Delilah smiled and pulled a blanket over him. She then put a note on his vulnerable back saying that if anyone pranked him that their tortured bodies would never be found. She also tried to draw a white mustache on him to match his hair, but the marker wouldn't show up and she couldn't find another one. Yawning, she headed to bed.
The next morning all everyone could talk about was the first task, which only added to Delilah's nerves. She really just wanted to curse almost everyone. But Moody was intently watching her and she didn't want to get turned into a ferret so she restrained herself.
But she really just wanted to curse time into oblivion. It was behaving in a very peculiar fashion, rushing past in great dollops, so that one moment she seemed to be sitting down in her first lesson, Study of Ancient Runes, and the next, walking into lunch... and then (where had the morning gone?) McGonagall hurried over to Harry, probably telling him that the Champions were going down to the first task. Delilah shot Harry a thumbs up that he and his obliviousness probably didn't notice as he left the Great Hall.
A few anxious minutes later the whole school started to head down.
"Hey, you alright?" a voice asked besides her.
"Yeah, thanks Draco."
"Don't lie," Draco whispered in her ear. "It's obvious that you're worried. And honestly I'd be worried if you weren't. He's your brother after all."
Delilah nodded.
"Let's go find our seats, the sooner we sit down the sooner it'll be over," Draco continued.
He grabbed her hand and guided them through the crowd.
Finally they reached the stadium. Draco wanted front row seats, but Delilah convinced him to go back a bit. She didn't want either of them to get burned.
It took the rest of the school a decent amount of time to sit down. When they did, a bunch of wizards (was that Charlie Weasley?) chained a blueish gray dragon to the rocks, right in front of a bunch of similarly colored eggs.
A horn blared out, and a breathless Bagman spoke.
"All the champions' goal is to get the golden egg! It contains a necessary clue about the second task!" He took a breath. "First is Cedric Diggory of Hogwarts going past a Swedish Short-Snout! Will he get it? Only time will tell!"
Delilah barely concentrated on Cedric as he transfigured a rock into a dog (apparently Harry wasn't the only one that got weird ideas), and only listened to snippets of Bagman's commentary as Cedric maneuvered closer to the golden egg, and the dragon.
Fifteen minutes later he had managed to run and grab the egg.
The judges showed his score but Delilah didn't care. She just hoped Harry was next....
"One down three to go!" Bagman announced. "Next is Miss Delacour facing the Welsh Green!"
Fleur did pretty well. She said a charm they couldn't hear and in a minute the dragon fell asleep. She moved to get the egg when the dragon snorted fire, catching her skirt, which Fleur quickly put out. She grabbed the egg. The crowd cheered and the scores were shown.
"And now Mr. Krum, facing the Chinese Firebolt!"
A whistle blew and Krum came out.
He used the Conjunctivitis Curse, hitting the dragon's eyes, making it stumble, crushing half of its eggs. Krum grabbed the golden egg. His score was shown and it was finally Harry's turn.
"Now Mr. Harry Potter against the Hungarian Horntail!"
Again the whistle blew and Harry came out. The crowd cheered, but Harry ignored them. He raised his wand and yelled, "Accio Firebolt!"
For an anxious moment it seemed nothing happened, but then his broomstick came zooming. Some students had to move out of its way. Harry clambered on. He zoomed upwards, then dived. The Horntail's head followed him, and a shot fire at him.
Delilah gasped, her hand reaching out, grabbing the first thing it touched. But Harry had dodged it.
"Great Scott, he can fly!" yelled Bagman as the crowd shrieked and gasped. "Are you watching this, Mr. Krum?"
Harry soared higher in a circle; the Horntail was still following his progress; its head revolving on its long neck. Harry dived again just as the Horntail opened its mouth, but this time he was less lucky — he missed the flames, but the tail came whipping up to meet him instead, and as he swerved to the left, one of the long spikes grazed his shoulder, ripping his robes — Delilah's hand tightened.
Harry zoomed around the back of the Horntail. He began to fly, first this way, then the other, the Horntail's head following him. Her head swayed this way and that, watching him out of those vertical pupils, her fangs bared.... He flew higher. The Horntail's head rose with him, her neck now stretched to its fullest extent, still swaying. Harry rose a few more feet, and she let out a roar of exasperation. Her tail thrashed again, but he was too high to reach. The Horntail shot fire, but he dodged it.
And then she reared, spreading her great, black, leathery wings at last, as wide as those of a small airplane — and Harry dived. He sped toward the ground, toward the eggs. He let go of the firebolt and grabbed the golden egg. He flew back into the air over the stands before the dragon knew what had happened.
Delilah's grip relaxed as the crowd cheered.
"Look at that!" Bagman yelled. "Will you look at that! Our youngest champion is quickest to get his egg! Well, this is going to shorten the odds on Mr. Potter!"
Harry climbed off of his Firebolt and was greeted by McGonagall, Moody, and Hagrid. And then he was off to the first aid tent.
A minute or two later he came out, with Ron and Hermione hanging back behind him, to get his score. This time Delilah paid attention. Madam Maxime gave him an eight, Mr. Crouch a nine, Dumbledore also put up a nine, Bagman a ten, and Karkaroff a four. The biased jerk.
"He and Krum are tied for first," Draco told her.
Delilah nodded her thanks, looked down, and realized that when she had grabbed out she had grabbed his hand, her face reddened, but she didn't feel ready to let go. She did, however, loosen her grip. Draco tightened his. Delilah glanced at him. His face was pink as well.
The stands started to empty, and Delilah and Draco headed out in silence.