Lucy Snape and the Return of Lord Zuc (Book Four)

The first task

Chapter seventeen: The first task 

"LUCY'S THE BEST! BETTER THAN THE REST!” someone shouted as Flitwich cleaned his spectacles in amazement.

 “Where is it?” McGonagall asked.

“I know” Snape muttered and McGonagall gave him a look, but they all knew then.

As Lucy approached the egg, slow motion seemed to engulf the world. She started to feel the eggs warmth as it shone her face back at her. But it didn't feel right. There was a feeling in her gut. She looked up to Shona to see whether she would know anything, after she had received mysterious powers from the orb, Shona had the power to seemingly sense things that where there.

Lucy was given a ‘I know, there’s something there too’ kind of look. But that only meant one thing. Shona looked down and made sure Lucy could see the sword; as long as she used the spell ‘accio’ she could use it. Lucy nodded slightly and pretended she hadn’t thought about deadly thoughts at all. More people were staring in shock at the easy task. Dumbledore waited with Crouch and Snape, and the other contestants had wandered up to the teacher’s area to watch, all was going well when - 

The roar of the dragon slashed everyone’s ears again, people holding their ears and crouching at the noise. It was worst for Lucy who was dazed from the noise, but now she knew where it was. She went to reach for the egg and quickly ran away. As she expected, a large fireball of flame chased her out of thin air, and the dragon roared louder, fire vibrating with power.

As Lucy hit the ground she looked up and stared, the dragon slowly appeared, like a cloak magically revealing the creature. It softly floated into view, and Lucy was astounded with its scales. They were twice as large as normal scales, but they were a mix of emerald green and a dark navy seal blue, that seemed to flow freely in and out of the scales. It was as if someone had let blue paint drip in an artistic way. It was forever stuck there, and it would have been so beautiful if the situation hadn’t have been so dangerous.

The dragon was quite large, although most dragons they had seen where anyway. It was stretching into the air, and it peered down to Lucy, ruby eyes piercing the girls. It seemed to smirk and zoom its head closer, the sound of it sinking closer filling the valley, children screamed as it reached closer to Lucy, who scrambled to her feet and started to run. The dragon crawled after her, keeping its centre of gravity low. This was its signature attack on smaller prey, move quick and attack venomously.

“Run!” Pavarti urged Lucy, who was dodging rocks and bursts of flame. Cedric clenched his teeth as one flame grew dangerously close to her hand. Snape didn’t know what to do with himself, hissing and flinching at every close miss his daughter managed.

“Accio fireb - ”

The dragon caught her hand and singed it, and she screamed in pain, dropping her wand and throwing her self behind a rock. She hyperventilated and felt her hand, which didn’t look nice at all; it had gone a funny red colour and stinged badly. Worst of all it was her wand hand, and she looked at the sky as the dragon hissed at her to come back out.

Snape stood up sharply and exhaled, and then was pushed back sharply by McGonagall

“This isn’t the chamber of secrets, professor,” she reminded him. He gave her a look and turned back to the action to see Lucy had tricked the dragon into going the wrong way, and was picking up her wand. Snape leant forward and nearly fell of his chair, professor sprout nearly having to pull him back.

Lucy had thrown a black piece of coal, but that wasn’t going to fool it for long. She picked up her wand and said the charm again

“Accio firebolt!”