Wish Upon A Star

Preparation for the First Task

Harry wasn't there for breakfast the next day. Hermione was worried, Ron was grumpier than usual, and Ashlyn was...well, just hungry. She had worked particularly hard last night, and she was exhausted.

Ron stomped off with Seamus and Dean. Hermione had huffed, Ginny rolled her eyes, and Ashlyn told something along the lines of "He'll come around".

Once they were done with their breakfast, Harry dragged them for a long walk along the lake, much to Ashlyn's annoyance. She didn't appreciate being dragged halfway through her breakfast while she was peacefully drinking her pumpkin juice, that too for exercise, no she didn't! But she didn't say anything, Harry looked like a nervous wreck.

"Dragons. The first task is dragons" he whispered hurriedly. 

Hermione went crazy.  "Oh dear!" she cried.

"Don't look at me like that!" Ashlyn said when Harry looked at her slightly reproachful, as though it was her fault he had to battle dragons.

"I just told that it was most likely," Ashlyn huffed and sipped her pumpkin juice, which she had managed to bring form the Great Hall.

"Did Sirius say anything yesterday?" Hermione asked

"Yeah. Karkaroff, he was a death eater," Harry said.

"So he could have put your name in the Goblet," Hermione said, then she shook her head, and said desperately, "Let's just try and keep you alive until Tuesday evening, and then we can worry about Karkaroff."

"Let's go to the library," Hermione said, "And will you stop that!" she snapped at Ashlyn who was sipping her pumpkin juice. Ashlyn sighed as she levitated the cup back to the Gryffindor table as they passed by the Great Hall and headed to the library.

Harry pulled down every book he could find on dragons, and they set to work searching through the large pile. Ashlyn slowly retired to the Transfiguration aisle and pulled out a book on human transfiguration and began reading.

"'Talon-clipping by charms . . . treating scale-rot... This is no good, this is for nutters like Hagrid who want to keep them healthy. . . .'Dragons are extremely difficult to slay, owing to the ancient magic that imbues their thick hides, which none but the most powerful spells can penetrate... .' But Sirius said a simple one would do it. . . .Let's try some simple spellbooks, then," said Harry, throwing aside Men Who Love Dragons Too Much.

He returned to the table with a pile of spellbooks, set them down, and began to flick through each in turn, Hermione whispering nonstop at his elbow.

"Well, there are Switching Spells . . . but what's the point of Switching it? Unless you swapped its fangs for wine-gums or something that would make it less dangerous. . . . The trouble is, like that book said, not much is going to get through a dragon's hide. . . . I'd say Transfigure it, but something that big, you really haven't got a hope, I doubt even Professor McGonagall . . . unless you're supposed to put the spell on yourself? Maybe to give yourself extra powers? But they're not simple spells, I mean, we haven't done any of those in class, I only know about them because I've been doing O.W.L. practice papers. . . ."

"Hermione," Harry said, through gritted teeth, "will you shut up for a bit, please? I'm trying to concentrate."

Ashlyn saw Harry gazing down miserably at the index of Basic Hexes for the Busy and Vexed... Ashlyn sighed.

"Oh no, he's back again, why can't he read on his stupid ship?" said Hermione irritably as Viktor Krum slouched in, cast a surly look over at the pair of them, and settled himself in a distant corner with a pile of books. "Come on, we'll go back to the common room . . . his fan club'll be here in a moment, twittering away. . . ."