Bound To You

Chapter 36: The First Task

Despite her efforts, Ginny couldn't figure out what the First Task was, other than that she'd have to get something which was guarded by something. She was frustrated, and the other champions seemed to have found out what the task was already. "Cheaters..." she muttered hatefully as she looked at the confident forms of her other two competitors. Anna's gloomy face looked imposing, and Aleron's face somehow emitted a 'dangerous beauty' kind of feel.

Ginny found herself feeling both inadequate and regretful for putting her Harry's name into the Goblet. How was she to know that Harry knew about something called a Speaker's Oath? She pouted, waiting for Ludo Bagman to come.

"Hello Champions! I am sure that by now you know what the First Task is? No? Well, I'll tell you anyway!" he said jovially. "You will need to get a pearl--that's right, a pearl! And it's being guarded by something very powerful... Come and get your numbers please! The Trial will be starting in a few!"

Ginny quietly took out a number and paled drastically when she got number 1.

"You're up first, Miss Weasley!" Ludo said happily, as if she wasn't someone too young to take on the Tournament and could more than possibly die. She knew that she could die in this Tournament, but she was very sure that if it were her Harry, he wouldn't die at all. Maybe beat up until he was at Death's door, but not die completely. He survived the Killing Curse, after all.

Gulping, she nodded and listened to his instructions--how he'll call her name, and then she'd only need to go through the tent flap to get to the Tournament area. Anticipation built inside the tent, where Aleron just sat coolly on a chair in the tent, and Anna's figure leaning on the tent's pillar, her eyes trained onto Ginny. She was chewing on a gum, and the sound of her popping it rang loudly inside the tent despite Ludo's enthusiastic voice coming through the thin tent fabric.

"... and the first champion is... Ginerva Weasley!"

Ginny jumped as her name was called, and quickly went through the tent flap. She could hear Ludo's talking about her appearance into the arena or something--but that wasn't what caught her attention. Not even the wide area that they deemed should be the arena, not the thousands of spectators--not even the fact that she could see Harry in the front row seats, beside him her brothers and the Know-It-All.

It was the fact that real pearls--magical pearls, one created once every million years and would cost thousands if not millions of galleons, one that sparkled no matter its age, with swirling patterns almost invisible to the naked eye, beautiful for only someone of Mrs. Potter would have, which of course should be her, as a part of her jewelry--and the one guarding it was... the Sorting Hat.

Was this some kind of a joke?

Why would they choose a magical, talking hat to guard such treasures?

Everyone and everything around her was silent, and she could hear someone whisper, "The clock's ticking and she's not doing anything?"

She shook her head and confidently walked up to the Sorting Hat, feeling a weird sense of nostalgia, when she had anticipated her own sorting. But this time, when she neared, the Hat's mouth slit opened up and--

SHRIEK!!!!!!!!!

She instinctively covered her ears and closed her eyes, her legs bending until she was crouching, as said Hat shrieked louder and louder, until the following silence was equally as deafening as its' shriek. Ginny tentatively opened her eyes, and saw--nothing happened. The Hat only shrieked, but nothing else happened. Feeling conned somehow, she sneered hatefully at the Hat, hating it for all it was, for even suggesting that she might want to go into Hufflepuff; the house of weaklings.

She stepped around the annoying Hat, and screamed herself when she saw that she was face-to-face with a grinning banshee.

She quickly cast her strongest Silencio, and even then the loudest scream everyone had ever heard slipped through her spell. It easily brought her to her knees, but not kill her entirely. She used a strong cutting hex at the vile being, but it dodged her spell swiftly, opening her mouth once more to scream a deadly scream. It went on like that--the banshee screaming through her Silencio, and dodging her hexes.

Until eventually, through pure luck, she stumbled and fell, her fingers catching the pearl as she tried to catch herself from falling horribly. Then, a few people, probably some sort of Aurors for the Tournament, came to stop the banshee from screaming once more, killing probably everyone within hearing range. She didn't care for her scores--of course, they should be very high since she survived a banshee--just that she'd passed the First Trial.

Harry sat among teachers, mainly because Sirius and Remus were there. Of course, their glamour was perfect and no one suspected that it's them. Severus wasn't in any way interested in watching the Tournament altogether, so he volunteered to stay at their chambers to keep an eye on their triplets. Both Ron and Hermione were sat next to him, so he was sandwiched between his godfathers and best friends.

"A banshee?!" Ron gaped, his face pale as he watched his little sister struggle against the shrieking monster. There were spells cast around the Audience Stands so that no one got hurt. Harry watched his gaze somewhat grim as Ginny dodged here and there, shielding and trying to attack, but failing.

When she survived her task, Harry was both relieved and disappointed--he'd expected more injuries on her person.

He blinked and shook his head. Where did that thought come from...?

Anna went next, the German Seventh Year fought against a phantom Basilisk that looked and even sounded like Jamila. He heard her playful hisses as she dodged expertly around the huge snake and managed to get the pearl--all without taking out her wand even once. It was an amazing feat, and everyone clapped and cheered for her.

Aleron had to face off a Necromancer's phantom, one that could summon real dead bodies and ghosts to attack. He'd suffered a bit of broken bones, but he survived. He got the pearl within 10 minutes and 39 seconds--3 seconds later than Anna. So in the end, Anna ranked first, Aleron second, and Ginny third.

All the while he was watching the First Task, he could feel someone's heavy gaze boring into the back of his head. It was... disconcerting in the very least, but with Ron and Hermione's excited chatter, he easily ignored it. And with both Sirius and Remus' help, he forgot about it completely.

There was a certain.... attraction... that he felt towards the by with shaggy black hair at the front seats. Harry James Potter, someone who had defeated his older self once when he was a baby. He wondered why he was so... fascinated by the sparkle of his eyes when he and his friends talked about the performances of the three Champions. He was a little bit too far to hear what they were talking about, but whatever they said made the boy's eyes sparkle with delight.

"Ehem," he said, acting as the bitch he was possessing. Of course, by possessing, he meant 'taking away her body completely by making her soul dormant and feeding his soul her pathetic magical powers and controlling her body and life completely.'

"I do not think that such chatter will be tolerated in my class Ms. Granger and Mr.'s Potter and Weasley," he sneered. "You will have to write the conclusion of chapters 1 until 5 if you do that..." And then he left with the threat, grinning at the hateful whispers he could hear coming from the three teens.

Dolores Umbridge, the Minister's Undersecretary, who's also the whore he's cheating his wife on. Apparently, the Minister had loved his wife but had not been satisfied with her and decided a little bit of thrill would be... a great idea. Dolores had confronted his wife in secret and now his wife could do nothing but suffer in the knowledge of it; the nights where he'd be 'too busy in his office' were the nights he would be screwing with her.

He sneered in disgust at the memory, but he needed them in order to act like the whore precisely.

His eyes once more was drawn to the shaggy-haired boy with slightly tan skin and a lithe body, his green, glowing eyes spoke of hidden power, yet untapped within him. He licked his lips and desire grew in his heart.

He wanted the boy--and he will get the boy.