New Romantics | Hermione Granger Book IV

|62| Chapter Sixty-Two

S I X T Y  T W O

▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬

"Maya!" Saffron yelped in delight as she, with Rachel and Rowan hot on her heels, rushed over to her sister, who was currently sitting down on a straw bench, with Amanda stood over her. It all seemed too good to be true, bearing in mind that Harry had yet to complete his task yet. Maya had survived the dragon and hadn't gone into the Grey afterwards as a result. Everything was okay, thus far, and that was all that Saffron had ever wanted out of the tournament.

"She's okay," Amanda reassured the Mitchell siblings, with a look that told them to give their older sister a bit of space. "A few burns here and there, but they'll be dealt with in no time. It's her ribs that are the problem, two of them are broken and most of the others are bruised. We just have to wait until Harry's finished before we can move her to the hospital wing, but she'll be okay,"

"Can we speak to her?" enquired Rachel longingly.

"She's sedated, just to get her breathing properly," Amanda explained with an apologetic frown. "It's easier that way, though she did tell me to tell the three of you that she's feeling fine. She'll be back to normal in a matter of hours though, so you'll be able to hear it out of her mouth then,"

"Thank you," said Saffron breathlessly, staring down at her elder sister who was blinking profusely but evidently on the brink of falling asleep. She, Rachel and Rowan stepped away from her to give her space and went out to the corner of the medical tent, to find that Harry's task was underway.

Saffron's stomach fluttered with a mixture of anxiousness and relief, as Harry had successfully managed to summon the Firebolt to his side. That was one major obstacle out of the way. Now he only had the small matter of a dragon to contend with. Though, if anyone was going to be able to do it, it was Harry. By the looks of it, he was already handling the dragon in typical Harry fashion; even if the road was a bumpy one, he always got to his desired destination.

Rowan clutched onto Saffron's hand tightly as Harry circled around the arena, the Horntail trailing him like a fiery look in its eye. Harry had to dive to miss the fiery flames that shot out of the dragon's mouth. A noticeable difference between this dragon and the ones Maya, Fleur and Viktor faced was that it was far more chaotic, in that it was even more aggressive and wild than the others. Saffron felt like the keepers of the dragons had a far tougher task in keeping this Horntail tame.

Saffron screamed as there was another near miss of the flames and the rest of the arena screamed with her, but they were screams of excitement. As Harry was flying upright quickly, in what was some Quidditch strategy according to the group of students nearest Saffron and just as they predicted, Harry shot down to the ground and managed to get the golden egg into his grasp.

"He did it!" Rowan squeaked, still looking shaken from throwing up earlier and relieved that he wasn't going to be induced to more vomit it. "He really did it, and in the fastest time too, wow,"

"I'm just glad we only had to mop up your sick, not bits of Maya and Harry," Rachel burst out, glowing now that she didn't have to worry about the task anymore and full of the life that had been sucked out of her in the lead up to the task.

"Ha-Ha," remarked Rowan dryly, though his eyes suggested that he too saw the light in the comment.

"Harry!" exclaimed Saffron a few seconds later, when Harry walked into the medical tent. She ran over to him and took him into a hug. "That was--- you were incredible!" She let go and offered him a bright beam but the smile weakened upon seeing that he was being followed into the tent by Professor McGonagall, Hagrid and specifically Professor Moody.