The Final Task
I had just woken up and the events from the day before suddenly came back to me. The ball? Our kiss?
I needed to find Draco and talk to him. I came down the stairs and found Draco in the common room with Blaise and Miles.
Draco smiled when he saw me and left Miles and Blaise to talk to me.
“Hey.” He exclaimed, giving me a hug.
”Can we talk?” I asked him.
”Yeah, what’s up?” He said, losing his smile.
”I think we should keep our,” I pointed to both of us, “you know, private?”
”Why?” He questioned, worriedly.
”I just don’t want all the drama, you know? Especially because of everything that happened during my relationship with Thomas. Plus, I don’t even want to know what’ll happen when Harry finds out.”
”If you want to keep it private we can.” He said to me, picking up my hand and squeezing it.
”Thank you.” I exclaimed. He let go of my hand as we walked back to Blaise and Miles. We stayed with them for a little bit before we went to the Great Hall for breakfast. We met up with Amelia at the Slytherin table and sat down to get something to eat.
"Y/N, where'd you go after the ball, yesterday? I couldn't find you anywhere." Amelia asked me as she chewed on some food.
I looked over at Draco and tried to think of an excuse. "Oh, uh, I wasn't feeling good so I went to the hospital wing."
"Are you okay?" She questioned, looking concerned.
"Oh, yeah. I guess it was just something I ate." I replied, looking down at the table. I felt so bad that I had to lie to her but it's better we keep things private for now.
Once breakfast was over, some of us had planned on going over to hogsmeade to buy a few things. When we got there we decided to go to Honeydukes for some candy.
Right as we were about to enter Draco stopped me and said, "We'll catch up with you guys later. I need Y/N's help with something."
Amelia looked at me with a confused look on her face and replied, "Okay.." She said slowly, but continued on with Miles into the candy shop.
"What are you doing?" I asked Draco as I followed him down Hogsmeade.
"You didn't forget about our date, did you?" He questioned, eyeing me with his eyebrows raised.
"No." I replied, blankly. "I just didn't know it'd be so soon."
”Well, now you know.” He said, "Three Broomsticks or Madam Puddifoot's?”
”I’ve never been to Madam Puddifoot's, so why not there.” I exclaimed.
“Great.” He smiled, he brought his hand down and intertwined his fingers in mine. I looked up at him and smiled. “I’m really glad we’re doing this.”
”Me too.” I replied, as we headed towards the tea shop.
Once we got to the tea shop, Draco held the door for me and I walked inside. It was a very tiny shop with pink and bows surrounding it.
”This is cute.” I said, though I noticed Draco had made somewhat of a disgusted face once we entered. “You don’t like it? We can go somewhere else.”
”No, it’s fine.” He reassured me, as we headed to an empty table. The tea shop was close to being full and I noticed most of the customers were couples from Hogwarts.
As we sat down, one of the waitresses came down to help us.
"What can I get for you?" She asked us.
"I'll just have an iced tea and a muffin, please." I said to her.
"Sure, what kind of muffin would you like?"
"Blueberry." I replied, as she wrote it down. She then turned her attention over to Draco.
"I'll have a coffee." Draco muttered.
"Plain?" She questioned, as Draco nodded. "Alright, I'll have that ready for you in a few minutes."
"Thank you." I said, as she walked off.
Draco stared at me for a while, without saying anything.
"What?" I asked him.
"I just can't believe we're on a date right now. Do you know how long I've been wanting to ask you out?" He exclaimed, in disbelief.
"Why didn't you?" I wondered, examining his face once more.
"You were with Pearson for a while and even after that I didn't know if you felt the same way." He explained to me.
"Well, now we're here."
"Yeah." He smiled, gazing at me before leaning in closer. I leaned in aswell as he took out his hand to get ahold of me. We were so close to combining our lips before the waitress interrupted us. We immediately pulled away from each other, sitting back in place.
"Here is your food." She stated, placing the coffee, iced tea, and muffin in front of us.
"Thank you." I exclaimed, as she nodded and left our table.
I looked over at Draco as he took a sip of his coffee.
"Plain coffee, huh?" I asked, as he swallowed and placed the cup down on the table.
"Are you judging me right now?" He laughed.
"No, I just don't understand how anyone can enjoy that." I stated, shaking my head.
"Well, why don't you try it?" He asked, signaling to his cup. I went to grab it and took a sip of the coffee. It tasted bitter with little flavor.
As I placed the cup back down, he asked me, "How was it?"
"Horrible." I laughed.
We sat their sipping our drinks for a while as we held our conversation.
"Do you remember when we first met?" I asked Draco as I took a bite out of my muffin.
"Yeah, in first year on the first day of school, right?"
"Yep, on the train. I accidentally walked into your compartment."
"Right and I said you could join us and then you randomly said "why is your hair white?"
"Did I really?" I laughed.
"Yeah, I was deeply offended by that."
"Hey, that was like four years ago. Plus, I love your hair now." I smiled.
He stared at my mouth as he reached his hand out and wiped crumbs off my lips.
I looked at him as he said, "Sorry, you had crumbs." He signaled towards your face.
"Thanks." I stated, staring back at him.
We continued talking as we both finished our food, once we were done we paid and left the shop.
We walked around Hogsmeade for a little bit as we looked through the windows of every shop. We walked past a jewelry store and on display near the window was a silver ring with an emerald green stone in the middle of it.
"Wow, that's beautiful." I said, as I walked up to the window to get a closer look.
"You should get it, it'll look nice on you." Draco exclaimed.
"Maybe if it was at a lower price." I said, looking towards the price tag that was next to it. "I've always wanted a ring like that."
I looked at the ring once more before we continued walking to Honeydukes. We were still in the mood for some candy.
"We should each buy candies for each other. But it has to be ones we've never tried before." I suggested as we entered the store.
"I like that idea." Draco nodded, as he went to a separate aisle and started picking candy.
I stayed in the aisle I was in and chose the first candy that was at the front of the aisle. We both picked about three to four candies each and once we were done, we headed out of the store. We found a bench outside, so we decided to sit there and try them all.
"Okay, I'll give you mine." I told Draco as I brought out my bag and took out the four candies I picked. I chose sherbet lemons, acid pop, caramel cobwebs, and chocolate frogs.
"Here, try these first." I said, handing him the sherbet lemons. Draco took one out of the box and placed it in his mouth. He made a sour face at first but it changed once the sweeter flavoring took over.
"Those are pretty good." He said, taking another one out from the box.
"Okay, now this one." I stated, giving him the acid pop.
He took it from my hand and began licking the sour lollipop. He instantly took it out of his mouth because of how sour it was.
"That's disgusting."
"Oh, come on it can't be that bad." I said, grabbing the lollipop out of his hand as I took one lick. The sour taste filled my mouth as I took it out, they were definitely worse than the sherbet lemons. "Yeah, you were right."
"Your turn." He said, grabbing a box out of his bag, "These are my favorites." He stated. I read the box labeled 'salt water taffy' before grabbing them. I opened the box and there were different colored balls of taffy, each wrapped individually with plastic. I took one of them out of the box, unwrapped it and popped it in my mouth.
"Wow, these are amazing." I admitted, savoring the sweet taste inside my mouth.
We tried the rest of the candies together as we sat on the bench. Once we finished trying all of them, we stayed there talking as the night became darker.
"You should visit my house again this summer." Draco suggested.
"I want to but I doubt I'll be able to. The Dursleys never let me do anything." I complained.
"I'll find a way to get you there." Draco said. "Maybe I could hex them."
"Oh really?" I laughed as I looked up at him. "And risk getting expelled?"
"Anything for you." He stated, turning his gaze over to me.
We stared at each other for a few seconds before he fixed his eyes upon my lips. He moved down to meet my height as he pressed his lips on mine. I kissed him back as we moved our lips in a slow pattern.
I broke apart from the kiss for a moment and said, "I'd love to see that."
He placed his hand on my thigh as he moved in closer, connecting our lips once more. He then moved away from my lips as he started to kiss my jaw, he was about to continue before we heard loud barking. We broke apart in search for the noise that was coming from in front of us. We turned and saw a black, shaggy-haired dog staring at both of us. It continued to bark as I went to go pet him.
"Aw, isn't he cute?" I said, getting up and placing my hand on the dogs fur.
"What is that?" Draco questioned, looking somewhat frightened.
"You've never seen a dog before?" I asked him, as I continued to pet him.
"Of course I have, but that's not a regular dog." He stated. The dog was pretty big for its size and it did look kind of creepy.
"We should probably head back to the castle." Draco urged, as he got up from the bench.
"If you say so." I said, grabbing our bags as we left the dog. "Bye, dog."
As we were walking up to the castle, it started to rain. We immediately rushed on our way since we didn't have any form of protection from the rain. Because of this, Draco took off his jacket he was wearing and held it over my head as we ran.
We finally made it to the castle and we both were soaking wet.
"Thank you for that." I told him, smiling from the sweet gesture.
"Of course." He replied.
We got to the Slytherin common room and he stopped me before we entered.
"I had fun today." He told me.
"Me too."
"Let's do it again sometime."
"Next weekend?"
"You know it." Draco said, winking at me, as we both entered the common room.
A few weeks had gone by and it was finally time for the third and final task. Hermione, Ron, and I were currently outside of the arena trying to console Harry as the task was about to start in a few minutes.
"Just remember everything we've been practicing for the past few months. Also, you have your wand so try and use it." Hermione said. We were getting our last few words with him before he had to enter the arena.
"You've made it this far, which means you actually have a chance at winning." I told him, as I gave him a hug.
"If you end up having to battle each other, go for Krum first." Ron muttered, as we left him. "Yeah, he's definitely not making it." He said, once we were out of Harry's sight.
"Don't say that." I exclaimed, hitting him on the head. I left both of them once we entered the seats. I went to go look for Draco in the Slytherin section.
He was already sitting with Miles, Crabbe, Goyle, and Amelia, as I approached them.
"Finally, what took you so long?" Amelia questioned, as she moved away from Miles and sat next to me.
"I had to wish Harry luck cause we all know he needs it.” I replied.
”You think he has a chance of winning?” She asked.
"I hope so."
The champions finally came out as the crowd applauded. Most of the crowd was either yelling "Diggory!" or "Krum!"
"Silence!" Dumbledore shouted, as he pointed his wand to his neck,
"Since Mr. Diggory," The Hufflepuff section cheered, "and Mr. Potter," the Gryffindor section as well as Amelia and I also cheered, "tied for first position. They will be the first to enter the maze."
I looked down at Harry as he smiled nervously, giving him a thumbs up.
Dumbledore finished announcing the rules as the cannon went off. All of the champions entered the maze and we waited until one of them would eventually return.
"How much do you want to bet that Viktor wins?" Crabbe asked from next to me, I noticed he had the word 'Krum' written over his forehead.
"Buzz off." I said to him as Draco came over and pushed Crabbe away.
"You okay?" Draco asked me, gazing at my nervous face.
"Yeah, I'm just worried about him." I stated, staring at the empty entrance to the maze.
"I normally wouldn't say this, but I'm sure he's doing fine. I mean he's made it this far." He replied.
"I cannot believe you just said that." I laughed.
"Don't even think about telling him I said that." He stated.
It was starting to get dark as we waited for the final champion to appear. We didn't know how long it would be, until, all of a sudden Harry and Cedric came out from the maze.
The crowd started cheering as we got up from the stands.
"Harry!" I shouted, as I left the stands to greet him. As I walked down to Harry, I noticed something was wrong. I looked down below Harry and froze as I screamed, Cedric was unconscious below him.
Draco had followed behind me and asked, "What happened?" He then looked at Cedric and immediately widened his eyes.
"He's back!" Harry shouted from beside Cedric, "He's back! Voldemort's back!" He continued shouting as Dumbledore and the rest of the teachers went to his side.
I covered my mouth with my hand as I cried quietly. Draco noticed this and wrapped his arm around me.
"I couldn't leave him." Harry stated, tears streaming down his face.
All of a sudden, Amos Diggory came down from the stands. He looked at his son's dead body and sobbed, "That's my son!" He then collapsed on the ground. "That's my boy!" He shouted again, laying at his son's side.
The whole arena became silent, no one knew whether to be sad or frightened. Was the news real? Was Voldemort really back?
I looked around trying to find Harry to see if he was okay but he had disappeared, "Where's Harry?" I turned around and looked through the crowd.
"Have you seen Harry?" I asked Hermione from behind me. She shook her head as I told her, "he's gone."
"Today we acknowledge," Dumbledore announced from the front of the Great Hall, "a terrible loss."
All of the students sat quietly while Dumbledore gave his speech, a few students crying silently.
"Cedric was exceptionally hardworking and a fierce, fierce friend." Dumbledore continued.
I was currently sitting next to Harry who I had found a few hours prior. He explained everything to the last detail. He told me how Mad-Eye Moody was actually Barty Crouch Jr. and also explained what happened during his time in the maze with Voldemort.
According to Harry, Cedric died because he was a spare alongside Voldemort's plan to be reborn. Harry kept saying how Cedric was never meant to be there and if it wasn't for him, Cedric would still be alive.
"Cedric Diggory was murdered," Dumbledore stated as the room fell even more silent than it was, "by Lord Voldemort." Many people gasped as they heard this, others were in disbelief.
Though, we all knew that because of his return, it was only going to get worse.