Chapter 12
"Alright, gentlemen," the minister began, before looking at me and adding reluctantly, "And lady."
I hadn't been much a fan of Prime Minister Ugbert before, due in large part to his blatant pure-blood favoritism, but being the object of his utter disregard did little to endear.
"The first task will have five judges: myself, the Headmasters from each of your respective schools, and my esteemed colleague, Lord Malfoy." I swallowed hard. There was no way that was a friendly coincidence. "Your task is to obtain a small silver egg around the neck of a certain... creature." The minister smiled, revealing yellowing teeth, and I got the distinct impression that whatever amused him so much about the beast would prove to be awfully irritating to me in a couple of minutes. "We, the judges, will grade you on how well you perform the task set before you. You, naturally, may use your wand as you see fit. No questions? Good, you will each enter the arena at the sound of cannon fire, when it is your turn. I think we'll have the oldest go first."
"That would be me," Frey announced cheerfully. He stepped forward, strangely at ease with the prospect of being the first to face some mystery monster. He must have prepared far more than me to feel so confident, but then again he had an extra year of schooling I lacked.
The minister gave him a once over, nodding with approval. "Give us a few minutes to prepare the stage. Good luck."
He turned on his heel, marching out the flap of the tent with his back ramrod straight.
"I bet it's going to be absolutely awful," Frey said, grinning as though it was all some joke only he was privy to.
"Aren't you nervous?" I asked, unsure why I was whispering. My own stomach was tying itself into knots, making me grateful I'd skipped breakfast to cram with Cassius and Altair in the library.
"Not really. Either I can do it, or I can't," he replied simply, shrugging. "I have nothing to prove, so I don't mind if I lose."
I shook my head, not knowing what to make of his laissez-faire attitude, like usual. Before I could muster a response, however, a cannon blast sounded, signaling it was his time to go.
"See you on the other side." He winked before letting the tent flat fall closed behind him.
The awkward wait with Nikolas was just as pleasant as I expected. He looked even more surly and pale than the last time I had seen him, which was really saying something, although it was probably his way of showing nerves. I was certain I had also grown at least a bit surly over the last few weeks as the first task grew closer.
To my surprise, the cannon rang not five minutes later, meaning Frey did either really well or extremely bad. Even though, in a competition like this one, his good fortune meant my misfortune, I couldn't help but root for his success. I was only just starting to believe that he wasn't actually hiding evil intent behind his aggressive friendliness. It seemed medically impossible for anyone to be that cheerful all the time.
Nikolas made for the tent flap, pushing it open.
"Good luck," I told him tersely.
He may have had a rotten personality, but I didn't wish him ill or anything. These competitions were notoriously fatal, and I wouldn't wish death on someone even as disagreeable as Nikolas.
"Right," he muttered, looking at me a second too long before heading out.
The wait for my turn was exceptionally longer than the wait for Nikolas's. Five minutes, ten minutes, and then twenty minutes elapsed before I gave up counting. By the time the cannon fired, signaling my turn, I was so bored I almost forgot to be scared.
And then I saw my what I would be facing.
Professor Aragon had called it a monster. Professor Aragon was correct.
I took one step onto the arena and just about fainted on the spot. The creature before me was more horrific than my worst nightmare from the night before had conjured.
A cockatrice.
It swung its massive head in a wide arch, accentuating it's most hideous features. Feathers merged with scales, converging in on a long, winding tall that stretched from one corner of the arena to the other. Veined, nearly translucent wings stretched towards the sky and blocked out the sun, each ending in a sickle shaped claw. Luckily, the monster had a beak in place of teeth, but I didn't doubt it's ability to impale poor, unsuspecting champions, specifically myself. Unfortunately, as if the claws, the tail, and the beak didn't make the cockatrice dangerous enough, I knew from my cram session that its most lethal feature wasn't something that could be detected using the naked eye. Cockatrices were something of a relative to the basilisk, owing to the fact that they were created in near identical ways. As a result, they shared some very unfortunate characteristics, namely the ability to instantly kill its prey, although the cockatrice killed through touch rather than sight. The judges had to be insane to make one of them our task. I'd like any of them take on a cockatrice and see how well they faired.
Before I could fully process what I was seeing, let alone develop a strategy to manoeuvre around it to obtain the silver egg wrapped on a chain around its long neck, it lunged. To say I saw my life flash before my eyes as its screech tore the atmosphere in half would be an understatement. I dove out of the way, earning myself long, bloody scrapes along my arms for my trouble.
Even as I sprinted from the strange serpentine creature like my life depended on it, it registered that I would need to get close enough to the cockatrice to yank the egg from around it's throat, yet it would kill me instantly if I so much as grazed it with my pinky finger.
Fantastic.
My feet pounded against the packed dirt beneath me as I fled, heart stopping fear propelling me faster than I'd ever run in my life, or ever would again. The world shrunk down to just me and the cockatrice, our audience completely forgotten.
Just as it felt like my heart was about to burst out my chest, I dropped down behind a boulder to catch my breath.
"YOU BLOODY IDIOT! ABOVE YOU!" Lyra's familiar shout rang far above the other yelling students in the crowd.
Instinctively, I looked up to see a storm of golden feathers raining down upon me, Abruptly I remembered another unwelcome factoid from Cassius's trivia sessions about the beast reigning over me, and that was that cockatrices were adept trackers.
"Expulso!" I cried, aiming for the head and hoping the spell didn't damage the silver egg I needed to collect in order to complete the challenge. Did I really even care at that point, though?
The cockatrice fell back, as though slammed in the beak by a giant's invisible fist. As it squawked furiously, I attempted to dart out of the corner I had painted myself into, instead nearly running directly into the beasts' spiked tail, swinging at me both too fast and too large for me to dive out of the way. Even if a single touch wouldn't have had the ability kill me instantly, those vicious looking spikes almost certainly would decorate the arena with artistic speckles of my entrails.
Out of options, I screamed, "Ascendio!"
The spell shot me into the air like a geyser, just as the cockatrices tail swept through where I had been standing a moment before. I landed a few feet away, legs screaming from the impact, and locked into a dead sprint.
Nothing was to be gained from prolonging the chase if it could find me instantly; I would only wear myself down and become easier prey. This needed to end sooner rather than later.
"I'm going to regret this in a second," I muttered, swinging around, mid-stride to face the beast.
My earlier attack only seemed to irritate it. How could I immobilize it long enough to grab the egg without actually touching the thing if my spells didn't work? I read that cockatrices were weak to the sound of the roosters crow, much like the basilisk, but I didn't exactly have any roosters handy. I could try summoning one, but if there were none nearby I didn't exactly have time to wait for it to traverse miles to get here.
Almost sarcastically, I ventured I aimed the Immobilising Charm at the beast as it geared for another lunge.
If a cockatrice could roll its eyes, this one would have, because the spell did absolutely nothing. I could almost imagine him brushing his feathers off pompously at my failed attempt. Of course it wouldn't be so easy as simply hitting it with a paralysing spell, but it had still been worth a shot.
Slowly, a plan started to take shape in my brain, not that I particularly liked it. It was extremely risky— so foolish even Damon would reconsider— but I didn't have any better ideas, nor the time to think twice.
Dodging swiping tails and lunging beaks, I sent volley after volley of the Incendio Charm at the creature. More spells missed than actually hit, earning plenty jeers from my ever-so-unhelpful audience, but I expected as much. The fireballs that actually hit didn't seem to do much damage either, merely flossing over its feathers and scales like a parting tide. What I needed was something stronger than magic— at the very least stronger than my magic.
I felt the ambient pressure shift around me, the clouds overhead growing darker and held the air of menace. If I didn't act immediately I'd miss my chance forever.
Behind me, I heard my brother scream, "What are you doing? Move!"
I didn't move, despite the very compelling voice in the back of my head screaming to run like hell, not to mention the voices of many of the spectators. My muscles grew so tense with a mixture of anticipation and fear they were practically made of stone. I wouldn't have been able to run at that point even if I wanted to.
Don't move, I told myself over and over. Don't move. Don't move...
Cockatrice bearing over me, close enough to count the acid green scales along its torso, I finally acted.
"Acendio!"
I shot into the air, far too close to the cockatrice's snapping beak for my comfort. I propelled myself higher and higher and higher, far enough from the ground that I was certain a free fall from this height would equal a trip to the cemetery rather than the hospital wing. Just like I had hoped, the cockatrice spread its massive, reptilian wings and shot after me into the air. Now, the problem was to find a way to get beneath him outside of being swallowed.
I allowed myself a second of head first free-fall, my hair whipping wildly past my face and blurring my vision, until I grew level with one of its slitted amber eyes.
"Fumos!" A smokescreen exploded from my wand, fanning directly into its eyes. I knew it wasn't a long term solution— maybe it could still hear and smell me— but it would buy me a precious few seconds. I could work with seconds. "Descendio!"
Even though it was terrifying to not see the ground rising up to greet me, I twisted in midair until I was staring up at the belly of the beast. Wrapping one arm within the excess material of my tattered robes, I gripped my wand tight between my trembling fingers with the other and cast what I hoped to be the second to last spell of the task, because if it didn't work I was royally screwed. "Depulsio!"
I watched, barely believing my good luck, as the cockatrice was driven even further into the air, but not before I stretched out my free hand as far as it would reach to take hold of the silver egg and chain within my cloth-cloaked fist, our opposing accelerations just enough to allow me to rip the thing free.
My joy cut short, as I felt a growing pressure pushing up against my wand arm.
I had was so focused on its face I had completely forgotten about the tail.
Within seconds, all sensation up to my shoulder vanished, and I saw, rather than felt, myself release my wand. With my other working hand that still carried the silver egg, I reached out to snatch it back before it was too late. Absently, I wondered how I wasn't dead yet. I had only felt it through the fabric of my robes, so maybe that dulled the killing magic.
With the maneuverability of a snake, the cockatrice reoriented itself to face me head on, screeching its hellish fury. Batting its wing, a whirlwind, it dove. The jaws of death opened to swallow me whole, and they smelled worse than I could have ever imagined. Wind roared in my ears from the continued freefall, but not louder than the beating of my own heart as the numbing effects from brushing the tail encroached upon my other shoulder. I had just enough time for one last spell, but what to use it on? I could attack the cockatrice to save myself the pain and, frankly, embarrassment, of being digested, but I would still die instantly upon impact with the rocky terrain. What was the point of getting the bloody egg to complete the task if I still died anyways?
Coming to my decision, I used the last precious seconds of mobility left in my non-dominant arm to aim my wand at the cockatrice's chest, cursing hoarsely, "Baubillious!"
As though the heavens themselves were waiting for my command, an arch of lightning shot down from the sky just as my own meager bolt fired from my wand, meeting in the middle at the serpentine bird, the highest point around for miles. All the fire is shot into the air altered the ambient pressure just enough to create lighting clouds through the volatile mixture of warm and cold air. I never thought in my wildest dreams that it would actually work.
The cockatrice thrashed and writhed in agony through the air, but I was now no more than a fly in its eyes before its new predicament.
Not a moment too soon, I lost all feeling in my remaining hand, causing my wand to slip out between my fingers once more and begin free fall beside me. The whole world became foggy and I couldn't feel the cool sensation of raindrops peppering my face anymore. I felt nothing.