Ella Potter (Draco Malfoy)

Chapter 26

"In the middle of the hall, really love?" Draco questioned as the two got into the Slytherin common room

"Oh shut up" Ella said throwing a book at him "don't act like you didn't like it"

Draco smirked and wrapped his arms around her waste "Now I never said that did I"

"No, I suppose you didn't" Ella said

"We're not 15 yet, but I say we date anyway" Draco suggested "we're not that young"

"Harry's gonna lose it" Ella said pulling away and walking close to the fire

Draco sighed "I think the most important job as a sibling is to support each other even when one might think it's the wrong choice"

"I think you're right" Ella smiled "I'll always love my brother, but he needs to respect what I want"

"And what you want" Draco held her hand "Is me"

-

Weeks past and it was finally time for the first task. Students filled the stands of the arena, waiting for the champions to face their first challenge, dragons.

"You're brother's going to get cremated" Draco said to Ella

"I'm sure he'll be fine" Ella replied as she sat in her seat next to Draco

Ella hugged Draco's arm and laid her head on his shoulder. The first 3 champions got their eggs and it was finally Harry's turn. Draco looked down to see Ella's wand in her hand and she was staring at the stadium, waiting for Harry to come out.

Harry walked out through the entrance of the tent, the panic rising into a crescendo inside him. And now he was walking past the trees, through a gap in the enclosure fence. He saw everything in front of him as though it was a very highly colored dream. There were hundreds and hundreds of faces staring down at him from stands that had been magicked there since he'd last stood on this spot. 

There was the Horntail, at the other end of the enclosure, crouched low over her clutch of eggs, her wings half-furled, her evil, yellow eyes upon him, a monstrous, scaly, black lizard, thrashing her spiked tail, heaving yard-long gouge marks in the hard ground. The crowd was making a great deal of noise, but whether friendly or not, Harry didn't know or care. It was time to do what he had to do...to focus his mind, entirely and absolutely, upon the thing that was his only chance. 

He raised his wand.

"Accio Firebolt!" he shouted.

Harry waited, every fiber of him hoping, praying....If it hadn't worked...if it wasn't coming...He seemed to be looking at everything around him through some sort of shimmering, transparent barrier, like a heat haze, which made the enclosure and the hundreds of faces around him swim strangely....

And then he heard it, speeding through the air behind him; he turned and saw his Firebolt hurtling toward him around the edge of the woods, soaring into the enclosure, and stopping dead in midair beside him, waiting for him to mount. The crowd was making even more noise....Bagman was shouting something...but Harry's ears were not working properly anymore...listening wasn't important....

He swung his leg over the broom and kicked off from the ground. And a second later, something miraculous happened....

As he soared upward, as the wind rushed through his hair, as the crowd's faces became mere flesh-colored pinpnicks below, and the Horntail shrank to the size of a dog, he realized that he had left not only the ground behind, but also his fear....He was back where he belonged....

This was just another Quidditch match, that was all...just another Quidditch match, and that Horntail was just another ugly opposing team....

He looked down at the clutch of eggs and spotted the gold one, gleaming against its cement-colored fellows, residing safely between the dragon's front legs. "Okay," Harry told himself, "diversionary tactics...let's go..."