ELIXIR: A Harry Potter Fan Fiction

Thirty Four. The Third Task.

If there had been one good thing about putting himself through the stress of N.E.W.T.'s unnecessarily, it was that Sean had had next to no time to stress about how very little he knew about the rapidly approaching Third Task.

    The day had arrived before Sean had really given it any thought. He lay in bed, perfectly still with dread filling his stomach like cement. What he did know about the task - it's time and location - seemed laughable actually. That is, it would have seemed laughable if he had been able to bring himself to laugh.

    He got up slowly, wishing he had asked Evelyn to stay with him last night. But she had gone to bed so early, wiped out from a week of studying. He too had been exhausted, so much so that it had actually been easy to fall asleep without a second's thought for the third task the following afternoon.

His watch read half past eight. Just over five hours until the two o'clock start time. His heart started beating at once, thumping against his chest like a constant reminder of the seconds falling away.

---

Caiti stood waiting for Sean when he finally arrived downstairs. "You slept late," she said, raising her eyebrows. It was, after all, an infrequent occurrence when she was awake and ready for the day before he was.

"Yeah," said Sean. From inside his distracted head, his voice sounded like it had come out inside a bubble. "Long week."

He swallowed and blinked at the ground a few times, trying to get a hold of himself.

"Mum and dad are here," said Caiti.

"Oh yeah?" said Sean, who wasn't really paying attention.

"Yeah, so come on. They're waiting for us. I mean... they're waiting for you mostly."

"Who's waiting?" asked Sean.

Caiti frowned. "Mum and Dad."

"What? Why?" asked Sean, snapping to attention at last.

"What do you think, you idiot? They came to watch you. Come on." She grabbed him by the elbow and hauled him out of the room, hair swinging over her shoulder as she turned.

---

Sean followed Caiti into the side chamber of the Great Hall. He had not been in here since the day his name came out of the Goblet of Fire. He was sorry to say that his utter terror had not subsided any since that night.

Eline had already arrived and was being given what sounded like - though he couldn't be sure, because he did not speak the language - a stern pep-talk. Oscar had not yet arrived. His parents, were seated at the end of the long table that had been set up in the room, next to a crackling fire that made Sean think it was a completely different time of year.

Sean's own mother - tall and blonde, with the same rounded face that Caiti had often complained made her look baby-faced - saw them enter first. Her brown eyes brimmed with tears immediately. She cried every time her kids came home and every time they left. With neither home for Christmas this year, it was the longest she had ever gone without a visit. She hurried over to them, pulling Sean into her arms first.

"Hi Munchkin," Sean heard his dad say, next to him, giving Caiti one of his familiar side squeezes. He wasn't much of a hugger.

His mum on the other hand... he was already worried he wouldn't be able to extract himself by the time the task started.

"Hi mum," he said, hoping a conversation would follow and encourage a bit of personal space.

She pulled back, holding him by the shoulders and looked him over. "Oh, honey, you looked stressed," she said.