The Era of Aria Snape

69

Chapter Sixty-Nine

EVEN THE MERE thought of the tournament was too much for Aria to handle. Deadly unknown tasks she had to worry about on top of all her work!

She didn't sign up for this. She would love to know who did sign her up for this. They would sorely regret it.

Aria had Defense Against the Dark Arts as her next class and as if she wasn't already stressed enough, she had to deal with George on top of everything.

She was early to her class and Moody made small talk with her. "You're a champion."

"Yes."

"Enter yourself?"

"No." She frowned. "Definitely not."

He nodded and patted her shoulder. "You've got talent, Miss Snape. Use it."

He ambled over to his blackboard as the class began to fill in.

Aria sighed as George sat down next to her and made a point to move as far away from him as possible. His stupid scent was all that she could smell and she wanted nothing more to blow up her own nose so she would not have to endure the torture.

"Alright class." He drank from his little bottle again. "Start where you left off last week. Back of the class and the first pair to correctly use the Levicorpus incantation gets a special surprise from me." Moody smiled.

Aria grimaced and turned towards George. It would only be a matter of seconds before he was hanging by his ankles. She had found the time to practice nonverbal spells every night and it had given her quite the advantage.

"You're welcome to try first." She smirked at him.

He looked at her confused but agreed as they headed towards the back of the classroom.

She stood, chest exposed and waited for George to fail. She was only biding her time and pretending to give him the slightest sliver of hope before completely destroying his pride and damaging his too big ego. Much like he had done to her when he broke up with her.

He pointed his wand at her, a small smile appeared on his face, which Aria was about to question before her vision changed.

Everyone was upside down!

Which meant that...

Before she had a chance to finish her thought, her robes came tumbling over her eyes. "Weasley!" She screamed, hearing muffled laughter all over the class. "Put. Me. Back." She ordered and soon found herself standing up straight with her feet on the floor.

She glared at him. Levicorpus! She screamed inside her head and no sooner had the spell left her wand was George upside down in mid-air. She smirked. "You're not the only one who can recite fancy spells."

Circumrota! Aria thought and George began to slowly rotate.

"Aria. This isn't funny!" He panicked after a few seconds. "You know that I get... queasy..." His face began to swell slightly and went a funny shade of red before he fell to the ground.

"Miss Snape." Moody snapped. "Please keep the use of your hidden talents outside of the classroom unless specified." He hurried to George's side and lifted him up. "You alright?"

George nodded, appearing to hold down his vomit.

"Class dismissed." Moody snapped and muttered something as he left the room.

"You really hate me," George sighed as they moved to clear their desk.

Aria sighed. "I thought I had made that clear last time. And then you go and embarrass me in front of the whole class! It didn't help your case."

"You said you wanted me to go first. I've known how to use nonverbal spells for years now."

"That's no excuse."

"Actually, it is."

"Whatever, George. I don't have time for this. I have to go and prepare for the bloody tournament."

He nodded. "You didn't say you were entering."

"That's because I didn't. Besides, even if I had, why would I tell you? You dumped me, remember?"

He remained silent for a moment, a frown etched onto his face. "Look, I know we aren't exactly on good terms but there's something that you need to know."

"If it's about your new girlfriend I don't care."

"No, it's about the tournament."

Aria quirked and eyebrow. Whatever George needed to tell her had to be important, or else he wouldn't have spared a second talking about it. "Well, what is it?"

"It's my brother," Aria sent him a funny look. "The one that works with Dragons." He clarified. "Charlie. He's tipped me off about the first task."

"How would Charlie know anything about the first task?"

"Because it's dragons."

Aria's heart sunk at the word. Dragons! How on earth would she deal with a dragon? She could barely handle a skrewt in her fourth year. "What?" Was all that she managed to get out.

"You'll have to retrieve something that the dragon is guarding. I know you, Aria. You'll immediately try and kill the thing, but please, use your head and don't perform an unforgivable curse in front of the Minister. Just knock the dragon out, grab whatever it is that you need, and get out of there before you get hurt."

Aria nodded, having hardly heard anything after "dragons". "Why do you care anyway?" She snapped as he was about to leave the class.

George sighed. "We might not be together anymore, but that doesn't mean that I've stopped caring about you. I know how reckless you are, so just... be careful." He left without another word, leaving Aria to her thoughts. She ignored George's pitiful speech and turned to the task at hand.

A dragon. What on earth was she going to do?