Wish Upon A Star

First Task

"Harry, you'll be fine," Hermione said, as Harry was called by McGonagall at lunch.

"Yeah," Harry said, dazed.

"Good luck, Harry," Ashlyn said hugging him.

"Yeah," Harry said again in the same off-ish voice.

"Dude looks like he's gonna pass out," Ashlyn said once Harry was out of earshot.

"Ash, you need to talk like a normal human," Hermione sighed

"Just you wait. 2020 and if people don't talk like this then they aren't normal," Ashlyn muttered under her breath.

Out of the corner of her eye, Ashlyn saw Cedric move out of the Great Hall too. 

"Wait here," she said to Hermione and rushed out. Hermione shook her head, smiling.

"Cedric! Wait up," Ashlyn said running after him.

"Hey, Ash," Cedric said. He looked pale and extremely dazed too. 

"You'll be fine. Good luck!" she said and then hugged him around the middle. It didn't take much time for Cedric to relax and wrap his arms around her. 

"Thanks," Cedric managed to say

"Bye. Good Luck!" she called behind him as she hurried off to the Great Hall.

Ashlyn and Hermione went out to the grounds along with thousands of other students, waiting for the first task to begin.

Hermione was wringing her hands nervously. Ashlyn was biting, sorry, understatement, she was basically chewing her lower lip. Even though she knew what was going to happen, she couldn't help it.

The stands were loud. Really loud. Incoherent chatter filled their ears until the judges arrived and took their seats. Soon Bagman hurried onto the judges' panel too, cleared his throat, pointed his wand at his throat, and began the commentary as the first whistle went off.

Cedric walked onto the grounds, wand ready. The Swedish Short Snout snorted flames from its nostrils and it began.

"Oooh, narrow miss there, very narrow" Bagman's voice echoed.

Ashlyn was clutching the rails in front of her, anxiously. Hermione's nails were digging into her face.

Cedric transfigured a rock into a labrador to distract the dragon.

"He's taking risks, this one!" 

The dog almost succeeded in capturing the dragon's attention, as Cedric crept around it towards the eggs. Halfway, the dragon lost interest in the dog and went for Cedric. Ashlyn gasped loudly, along with hundreds of other voices, when Cedric got half of his face burnt.

 "Clever move — pity it didn't work!"

A few more minutes and he succeeded in getting his golden egg. Ashlyn sighed in relief as Cedric got his scores, and was ushered off the grounds into the champions' tent by Professor McGonagall who was happily commenting on his performance.

Then Fleur came up. She did really well. She put the dragon to sleep with grace and elegance, one fluid motion of her wand. Everything went well, until her dragon snored, lighting her skirt on fire. Fleur panicked for a few seconds, then put it out with her wand.

Next came Krum. His aim was perfect as he shot the conjunctivitis curse. The dragon went all dazed and confused in pain and stopped around, crushing half of the real eggs. Ashlyn from the stands and Charlie from the grounds were yelling at Krum for killing unborn dragon babies, but not that anyone heard over the din. They were all cheering as Krum retrieved his golden egg.