Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
—✧—✧—✧—✧—✧—
TWENTY SHE'S A RIOT
—✧—✧—✧—✧—✧—
DELIA DOESN'T REGISTER the blow of Bagman's whistle as she bolts into the forest. She barely even notices how the brims of her white Converse are covered in dirt after kicking it up running into the maze. The screaming of the crowd fades into white noise and all she can sense is the complete and utter darkness of the maze. But she doesn't have time to think about anything, she's only got a couple of seconds advantage over the other champions and she needs to make the most of it.
So Delia grips her wand tightly in her hand and she says, "Point me!" And as her wand swivels and turns she pulls out the torch that her mum had brought her ("Just in case,") and turns it on. Thank you, Mum. And Delia keeps running forwards, because she knows that the Cup is in the centre of the maze, so she'll keep running forward for as long as she can until her wand comes to a halt. Which it does.
Delia skids to a halt as her wand starts to point her left and she starts to run again, gripping the edge of the hedge for support as she almost slips rounding the corner. You've got this, she keeps repeating in her head. You've got this. Her wand then turns to the right and Delia rounds another corner, jumping over a tree root. She slows down her running speed and starts to pace herself. But as she continues to run straight, the torch in her hand dies. She curses under her breath and stupidly stops running for a moment, trying to smack the torch against the palm of her hand to get it to work again. It doesn't.
Whatever, she thinks. It was stupid of her to even believe that they'd let something like this pass by without putting a magical block in the maze or something. So she looks up at her wand, still pointing straight and Delia starts to run straight again. She rounds another corner.
And suddenly, she doesn't feel like Delia Thorne, soon-to-be Slytherins champion of the Triwizard Tournament, she doesn't even feel like Delia Thorne, daughter of Gianna and Vincent Thorne. She just feels like Delia — a stupid girl who made a stupid mistake. She takes a step back, she's angry and frustrated, and annoyed, but most of all — she's scared.
Because there's Dianne Johnson.
And she freezes in her tracks. This can't be real, right? She's got to be imagining this. Maybe it's the stress of everything finally getting to her. But how can she be imagining it? Because there's Dianne Johnson, clear as sunlight standing in front of her. Every one of her red curls is perfectly intact, just like always. Delia's hand falls to her bracelet.
She feels smaller than she's felt in a long time, and she looks around the maze, trying to find an out. She takes a step back — holding her want out shakily. Because as much as she acts like it wasn't her fault, and as much as she tries to ignore it; it haunts her. Dianne Johnson haunts her. No matter how tough she acts to try and cover up her fear, Delia feels like nothing more than a scared little girl. The same scared little girl who made a dumb mistake and ruined her life.
