HEART OF THORNE ━ harry potter

xii. Hawaiian Party

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TWELVE HAWAIIAN PARTY

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DELIA FEELS ICKY.

     But not icky in like a dirty way, or anything. Godric no. She showers. She's not that kind of person. But more icky in a feeling kind of way. Like, she feels all gross on the inside and a bit like she's gonna throw up? She's not going to, she knows she isn't. But still.

     A month has gone by since the end of the first task and Delia is still nowhere closer than she was before to figuring out this forsaken, cursed egg.

Every day after classes, and after she'd finished all of her homework, Delia would sit down and try to figure out the egg. She'd looked at the outside of it, to see if maybe there was a hidden latch or something, like what magicians do with their 'magic' tricks. (Although now she wonders if magicians are all actually wizards.) And she'd even opened it and unleashed the shrieking noise inside to try and see if there was a clue inside of the egg, somehow. She'd only closed the egg after freaking out at how the mermaids were swarming around the window, and when everyone in the common room shouted at her to shut it up.

She'd told them off after, obviously. They won't yell at her again.

Time is of the essence and she's running out of it. Of course, there's still a couple more months until the second task — but again — what if the task is going to be harder than the last one? What if instead of fighting off a dragon, this time she'll have to cure some deadly disease before it infects her body and kills her, or something? Then she'll lose her first place title and let down everyone. She can't do that. Not when she promised them that she wouldn't.

     But it's fine, Delia thinks.

     And after a sort of major freak out over not being able to figure out the clue, Pansy had dragged her into the common room and comforted her. She said that they still had time and that Delia should seriously take a break from the egg before she went mental. "Give it a week, or two, at least," she'd said. "So that your brain can regenerate and it'll be fresh to start cracking on the puzzle again."

     Begrudgingly, Delia agreed. She knows that it's for the best so that she doesn't go batshit insane, but still. What if another champion figured out the clue by now? They've got a much further head start than her. But it's fine. It's fine. Delia knows that Pansy's right so she did exactly that. She's doing exactly that. She's taking a break from the egg so she won't lose her head. So she's in the library, finishing up some History of Magic homework with Theodore.