thick skin and an elastic heart

Chapter 4

The next few days passed in a blur. Juliana's classes and daily routines seemed to meld into one long flurry of automatic movements.

All she could think about was that first task.

As suspected, the library had a complete history of past Tri-Wizard tournaments, and that was where Juliana spent her time outside of classes. Piles of dusty books surrounded her as she flipped pages, searching for any relevant information, and continued her reading. Loose scraps of parchment filled with her scribbles fluttered next to her right hand with each exhalation.

Juliana paused reading and frowned. She noticed a theme. For every Tournament year, there was at least one task involving a magical creature or two. The deadlier tournaments made the champions fight them, while others merely had the wizards subdue them. The Tournament of 1792 famously ended when a cockatrice, a magical creature resembling a rooster with a lizard's tail, went on the rampage, killing all three contestants. That tournament ended prematurely. Juliana snapped the book shut before the images could bury themselves in her brain, and pushed it away. She let her thoughts settle from the information overload before grabbing a fresh roll of parchment.

Juliana steadily wrote a list of the potential magical creatures, starting with the most lethal ones and worked her way down. She also focused on those creatures native to the British Isles and tried to sort them based on probability the Tournament could acquire one.

She wrote Dementors, pausing her quill above it.

They weren't stupid enough to bring Dementors, right?

She was about to cross it out, when the book she was just reading, A History of the Tri-Wizard Tournaments, caught her eye. It was a testament to the officials' poor decision making. She sighed and made an annotation to learn the Patronus charm.

She ran a hand through her long hair. The Patronus charm? How was she going to learn that?

She wondered if Valentina would know. She should probably ask since they agreed to work together. That thought alone made her heart skip a beat. They hadn't spoken since that night. Juliana was busy with classes during the day, catching up with homework at night, and researching Tournament's tasks. She wasn't sure what they taught at Beauxbatons, but the Patronus Charm was not part of the Hogwarts curriculum until the end of seventh year. The school didn't test it on the NEWTs - it was that advanced. If nothing else, they could work on it together.

That is, if Valentina still wanted to work with her.

Juliana bit her lip as she thought about the past few days. It was a valid excuse to see the other girl, and not just because she wanted to see her.

Valentina was incredibly popular. Two owls swooped in the day after the champion selection, carrying gigantic bouquets of peach, blush, beige, and bright pink dahlias. They landed in front of Valentina, drawing the attention of the entire hall, bringing admirers gushing over them.

If an owl came for Juliana, it would be from the Magical Law Enforcement telling her that her mother was missing or dead. If she were lucky, it would be the fantastic news of Chino's arrest and imprisonment. Any prison would do. As far as she knew, her mother was fine, and Chino was still up to no good. No news was good news; she reminded herself.

The flowers and the constant stream of accolades kept Juliana away the first day. Why would Valentina pay attention to her when even Hogwarts' bests were clamoring for her attention?

Even students who had mostly ignored Juliana during her Hogwarts existence were congratulating her. The boys in her year suddenly seemed to find her fascinating enough to start a conversation. One even tried to hold her books on her way to Potions. She almost hexed him, for all she knew he was trying to steal her stuff.