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The only things that made Blair take her mind off the first task was their upcoming talk with Sirius and her moments with Hermione. It made Blair smile how the witch was warming up to her. 

In their third year, she used to throw away Blair's notes or ignore them. She even shouted at her at times, but it all changed. Happiness rose in Blair at the thought of the the brightest witch finally liking her back.

Blair suddenly remembered Rita Skeeter's article, and she grew annoyed at the words that weren't her own.

" The young witch said, "I suppose I do go looking for trouble. You can't blame me. I want to prove myself." Blair Wood's close friend, Dennis Creevey, says that Blair has been chasing a stunningly pretty Muggle-born, Hermione Granger, who is also the object of affections of her best friend, Harry Potter. Maybe, this is the reason why Blair Wood entered the tournament."

All those sentences, not one came from Blair's own mouth. Of course, Blair and Harry knew that everything she said was bollocks, so neither of them dwelled on it. Blair smiled as Neville and Harry sat beside her where she sat at the side of the Black Lake.

Harry moaned to Blair about his interaction with Cho Chang. "And I shouted-"

"Amazing. Amazing!" Neville muttered under his breath as he read his book.

"Oh, Gramen. You're doing it again." Blair chuckled at her friend, who turned pink.

"Right. Sorry, Blair."

Harry checked the cover. "Magical water plants of the highland Lochs?"

"Moody gave it to me. The day we had tea." Neville responded and waved as he caught sight of someone.

Blair and Harry turned around to see Hermione, Ron and Ginny walking towards them. Blair looked confused as Ron and Hermione whispered for a while.

Then, Hermione walked up to them. "Ronald would like me to tell you that Seamus told him that Dean was told by Parvati that Hagrid was looking for you."

Blair and Harry exchanged confused glanced before Blair turned to Hermione. "Wait what?"

Hermione sighed before she went back to Ron and whispered some more before coming back. "Ronald told me that Seamus... Please don't ask me to say it again, Hagrid's looking for you."

Harry scoffed at that. "Well you can tell Ronald-"

"I'm not an OWL!" Hermione shouted as she linked arms with Ginny, and they walked away. Ron sent them one last glare before following after Hermione and Ginny. Blair sighed, confused at what happened before lying down on the grass. What could've Hagrid wanted?

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Blair, Harry and Hermione had been hanging around in the library more as they prepared for the first talk. Hermione taught Harry and Blair the Summoning Charm, but it seemed that they still had a hard time with it. Blair raised an eyebrow as she noticed Krum in the library too, and she started getting annoyed at him when Hermione found the noise of his fan club distracting.

"He's not even good-looking!" she muttered angrily, glaring at Krum's sharp profile. "They only like him because he's famous! They wouldn't look twice at him if he couldn't do that Wonky Faint thing —"

"Wronski Feint," corrected Harry, through gritted teeth. Blair smiled sadly at him as she knew that he was probably thinking of Ron as she was. She missed their redhead friend, but if he couldn't believe them, then maybe, it was better that they stayed away from each other.

The days slipped by quickly, and Blair was happy that Saturday came. The others made plans to visit Hogsmeade, but Blair went with Neville, Dean and Seamus instead when she heard Hermione's plans about meeting Ron. Blair smiled and laughed the whole night as she watched Hermione talking to an invisible person while sipping her butterbeer.

"Oi, Caelum. Quite focused, aren't you?" Seamus nudged her teasingly. Blair sighed dreamily and continued staring at Hermione, who looked fired up.

Blair excused herself from her friends. She walked towards Hermione and Harry and sat in front of Hermione. "Hey, Granger. You know what?"

Hermione let out an exasperated sigh. "What is it now, Wood?"

"You have the portkey to my heart." Blair winked at Hermione, who blushed a deep shade of red.

Harry stifled his laughter as Hagrid and Moody, who were behind Blair, laughed.

"Little B. You're getting quite cheeky now, ey?" Blair smirked proudly at her mentor before Moody looked at where Harry was sitting. "Nice cloak, Potter."

"Can your eye- I mean, can you-" Harry started stuttering.

"Yeah, it can see through Invisibility Cloaks," Moody said quietly. "And it's come in useful at times, I can tell you."

Hagrid bent down and whispered. "Harry, Blair, we'll meet tonight at the cabin, alright? Bring the cloak." Straightening up, Hagrid said loudly, "Nice ter see yeh, Hermione, Blair," winked, and departed. Moody followed him.

"Why does Hagrid want us to meet him at midnight? Is this what you had been going on about the other day?" Harry said, very surprised.

"That wasn't me. That was Ron." said Hermione, looking startled. "I wonder what Hagrid's up to? I don't know whether you should go, Harry, Blair."

She looked nervously around and hissed, "It might make you late for Sirius."

Blair shrugged her shoulders. "We'll be quick then."

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Harry and Blair snuck under the Invisibility Cloak and crept past the Creevey brothers and towards the portrait hole. They muttered their thanks to Hermione, who opened the portrait from outside as they had planned. The two of them set off through the castle and walked towards Hagrid's cabin.

Blair could hear Madame Maxime talking inside the Beauxbatons carriage on the right as she knocked on Hagrid's front door. 

"You there, Blair, Harry?" Hagrid whispered, opening the door and looking around.

"Yeah," said Harry, slipping inside the cabin and pulling the cloak down off them. "What's up?"

"Got summat ter show yeh two," said Hagrid.

There was an air of enormous excitement about Hagrid. He was wearing a flower that resembled an oversized artichoke in his buttonhole. It looked as though he had abandoned the use of axle grease, but he had certainly attempted to comb his hair — Blair could see the comb's broken teeth tangled in it. Blair winced as she helped Hagrid clean up and removed the comb's teeth in his hair.

Hagrid beamed at her. "Thank you, Little B."

"What're you showing us?" Harry said warily.

"Come with me, keep quiet, an' keep yerselves covered with that cloak," said Hagrid. "We won' take Fang, he won' like it."

"Listen, Hagrid, we can't stay long. We've got to be back up at the castle by one o'clock —" But Blair was cut off as Hagrid opened the door. Harry and Blair exchanged surprised glances as Hagrid led them to the Beauxbatons carriage.

"Hagrid, what — ?"

"Shhh!" said Hagrid, and he knocked three times on the door bearing the crossed golden wands.

Madame Maxime opened it. She was wearing a silk shawl wrapped around her massive shoulders. She smiled when she saw Hagrid. "Ah, 'Agrid... it is time?"

"Bong-sewer," said Hagrid, beaming at her, and holding out a hand to help her down the golden steps.

Harry and Blair looked at each other, bewildered, as they ran to keep up with them. They didn't think it was too important to show them Madame Maxime. Hagrid could introduce her any time, but it turned out even Madame Maxime didn't know where Hagrid was taking them.

It was silent for a while before Madame Maxime said playfully, "Wair is it you are taking me, 'Agrid?"

"Yeh'll enjoy this," said Hagrid gruffly, "worth seein', trust me. On'y — don' go tellin' anyone I showed yeh, right? Yeh're not s'posed ter know."

"Of course not," said Madame Maxime, fluttering her long black eyelashes.

And still they walked, Blair and Harry getting more and more irritated as they jogged along in their wake, Harry was checking his watch every now and then. They might miss Sirius. Blair was about to turn around and go when she heard something. Men were shouting up ahead then came a deafening, earsplitting roar.

Hagrid led Madame Maxime around a clump of trees and came to a halt. Harry and Blair hurried up alongside them — for a split second, Blair thought she was seeing bonfires, and men darting around them — and then her mouth fell open.

Dragons. Four fully grown, enormous, vicious-looking dragons were rearing onto their hind legs inside an enclosure fenced with thick planks of wood, roaring and snorting — torrents of fire were shooting into the dark sky from their open, fanged mouths, fifty feet above the ground on their outstretched necks.

Blair and Harry looked at each other, terrified, before they stared back at the dragons. There was a smooth-scaled green one, which was writhing and stamping with all its might; a red one with an odd fringe of fine gold spikes around its face, which was shooting mushroom-shaped fire clouds into the air; a gigantic black one, more lizard-like than the others, which was nearest to them; and a smooth-scaled copper one with black markings and horns, considerably smaller than the others but the most aggressive.

At least thirty wizards, seven or eight to each dragon, were attempting to control them, pulling on the chains connected to heavy leather straps around their necks and legs. Blair couldn't help but frown as she saw hints of fear in the dragon that breathed out fire.

"Keep back there, Hagrid!" yelled a wizard near the fence, straining on the chain he was holding. "They can shoot fire at a range of twenty feet, you know! I've seen this Horntail do forty!"

"Is'n' it beautiful?" said Hagrid softly.

"It's no good!" yelled another wizard. "Stunning Spells, on the count of three!"

Blair saw each of the dragon keepers pull out his wand. "Stupefy!" they shouted in unison, and the Stunning Spells shot into the darkness like fiery rockets, bursting in showers of stars on the dragons' scaly hides — Blair watched the dragon nearest to them teeter on its legs before it slowly fell. Blair frowned and felt sorry for the dragons. They should be free, not chained.

The dragon keepers lowered their wands and walked forward to their fallen charges, each of which was the size of a small hill. They hurried to tighten the chains and fasten them securely to iron pegs, which they forced deep into the ground with their wands.

"Wan' a closer look?" Hagrid asked Madame Maxime excitedly. The pair of them moved right up to the fence, and Harry and Blair followed. The wizard who had warned Hagrid not to come any closer turned, and Blair realized who it was: Charlie Weasley.

"All right, Hagrid?" he panted, coming over to talk. "They should be okay now — we put them out with a Sleeping Draft on the way here, thought it might be better for them to wake up in the dark and the quiet — but, like you saw, they weren't happy, not happy at all —"

"What breeds you got here, Charlie?" said Hagrid, gazing at the closest dragon, the black one, with something close to reverence. Its eyes were still just open. Blair could see a strip of gleaming yellow beneath its wrinkled black eyelid.

"This is a Hungarian Horntail," said Charlie. "There's a Common Welsh Green over there, the smaller one — a Peruvian Vipertooth, that copper — and a Chinese Fireball, that's the red."

Madame Maxime was strolling away around the edge of the enclosure, gazing at the stunned dragons. "I didn't know you were bringing her, Hagrid," Charlie said, frowning. "The champions aren't supposed to know what's coming — she's bound to tell her student, isn't she?"

"Jus' thought she'd like ter see 'em," shrugged Hagrid, still gazing, enraptured, at the dragons.

"Really romantic date, Hagrid," said Charlie, shaking his head as Madame Maxime walked around. Blair stifled her snort at that.

"Four..." said Hagrid, "so it's one fer each o' the champions, is it? What've they gotta do — fight 'em?"

"Just get past them, I think," said Charlie. "We'll be on hand if it gets nasty, Extinguishing Spells at the ready. They wanted nesting mothers, I don't know why... but I tell you this, I don't envy the one who gets the Horntail. Vicious thing. Its back end's as dangerous as its front, look. Or the Vipertooth. Its fangs are highly venomous, and it's quick. It flies real fast." Charlie pointed toward the Horntail and the Vipertooth. Blair felt her stomach churn at the thought of fighting one of those dragons.

Then, Charlie said, "How's Harry and Little B?"

"Fine," said Hagrid. He was still gazing at the eggs.

"Just hope they're still fine after they've faced this lot," said Charlie grimly, looking out over the dragons' enclosure. "I didn't dare tell Mum what they've got to do for the first task; she's already having kittens about them..." Charlie imitated his mother's anxious voice.

"'How could they let them enter that tournament, they're much too young! I thought they were all safe, I thought there was going to be an age limit! Blair just got in an accident, oh dear.' She was in floods after that Daily Prophet article about them. 'He still cries about his parents! Oh bless him, I never knew!' 'The troubles she goes through. I can't believe she thinks it wasn't enough.'"

Blair rolled her eyes at the thought of Mrs. Weasley believing those wretched articles. She nudged Harry, and the two of them began to walk away in silence. At least, they knew what the first task was now. 

Harry suddenly nudged her. "Blair! Sirius!" 

Panic began to rise up in Blair. The two of them sped up and ran across the castle. They ran up the stairs, and panting, Blair gasped at the Fat Lady, who was snoozing in her frame. "Balderdash!"

"If you say so," she muttered sleepily, without opening her eyes, and the picture swung forward to admit them.

Harry and Blair climbed inside. The common room was deserted, and, judging by the fact that it smelled quite normal, Hermione had not needed to set off any Dungbombs to ensure that Harry, Blair and Sirius got privacy.

Harry pulled off the Invisibility Cloak and threw himself into an armchair in front of the fire. Blair followed after him and sat down in front of the fire. The room was in semidarkness; the flames were the only source of light. Blair looked back into the flames, and jumped. Sirius's head was sitting in the fire.

"Bloody hell, Uncle Padfoot." Blair grinned.

Harry crouched down beside her. "Sirius — how're you doing?"

Blair smiled. Sirius had now looked younger and cleaner, not like how he looked in the Daily Prophet's articles or that day at their house. Sirius winked at them. "Always good to see you, Caelum, Harry. But never mind me, how are you?"

Sirius turned serious. Harry and Blair exchanged glances before they told him everything about how no one believed them, how Rita Skeeter lied about them, how sneers and whispers followed them down the corridors and even Ron.

"...and now Hagrid's just shown us what's coming in the first task, and it's dragons, Sirius, and we're goners," Harry finished desperately.

Sirius looked at them, eyes full of concern. He had let Harry and Blair talk themselves into silence without interruption, but now he said, "Dragons we can deal with, Harry, Blair, but we'll get to that in a minute — I haven't got long here. I've broken into a wizarding house to use the fire, but they could be back at any time. There are things I need to warn you about."

"What?" said Blair, feeling more down. Surely there could be nothing worse than dragons coming?

"Karkaroff," said Sirius. "He was a Death Eater. You know what Death Eaters are, don't you?"

"Yes — he — what?" Harry's jaw dropped.

"He was caught, he was in Azkaban with me, but he got released. I'd bet everything that's why Dumbledore wanted an Auror at Hogwarts this year — to keep an eye on him. Moody caught Karkaroff. Put him into Azkaban in the first place."

"Karkaroff got released?" Blair said slowly — Blair's brain seemed to be struggling to absorb yet another piece of shocking information. "Why did they release him?"

"He did a deal with the Ministry of Magic," said Sirius bitterly. "He said he'd seen the error of his ways, and then he named names... he put a load of other people into Azkaban in his place... He's not very popular in there, I can tell you. And since he got out, from what I can tell, he's been teaching the Dark Arts to every student who passes through that school of his. So watch out for the Durmstrang champion as well."

"Okay," said Harry slowly.

Blair frowned as she remembered his reaction. "But are you saying Karkaroff put our names in the goblet? Because if he did, he's a really good actor. He seemed furious about it. He wanted to stop us from competing."

"We know he's a good actor," said Sirius, "because he convinced the Ministry of Magic to set him free, didn't he? Now, I've been keeping an eye on the Daily Prophet, Harry, Blair —"

"— you and the rest of the world," said Harry bitterly.

Blair sighed and ran her fingers through her hair out of frustration. "Cheers, mate."

"— and reading between the lines of that Skeeter woman's article last month, Moody was attacked the night before he started at Hogwarts. Yes, I know she says it was another false alarm," Sirius said hastily, seeing Harry and Blair about to speak.

"But I don't think so, somehow. I think someone tried to stop him from getting to Hogwarts. I think someone knew their job would be a lot more difficult with him around. And no one's going to look into it too closely; Mad-Eye's heard intruders a bit too often. But that doesn't mean he can't still spot the real thing. Moody was the best Auror the Ministry ever had."

"So... what are you saying?" said Harry slowly. "Karkaroff's trying to kill me? But — why? And why Blair?" Blair sat up straight, wondering that as well.

Sirius hesitated. "I've been hearing some very strange things," he said slowly. "The Death Eaters seem to be a bit more active than usual lately. They showed themselves at the Quidditch World Cup, didn't they? Someone set off the Dark Mark... and then — did you hear about that Ministry of Magic witch who's gone missing?"

"Bertha Jorkins? They mentioned her at the World Cup, and Mister Alastor and Dora talked about her during the summer," said Blair.

"Exactly... she disappeared in Albania, and that's definitely where Voldemort was rumored to be last... and she would have known the Triwizard Tournament was coming up, wouldn't she?"

"Yeah, but... it's not very likely she'd have walked straight into Voldemort, is it?" said Harry.

"Listen, I knew Bertha Jorkins," said Sirius grimly. "She was at Hogwarts when I was, a few years above your dad and me. And she was an idiot. Very nosy, but no brains, none at all. It's not a good combination, Harry. I'd say she'd be very easy to lure into a trap."

"So... so Voldemort could have found out about the tournament?" said Blair. "Is that what you mean? You think Karkaroff might be here on his orders?"

"I don't know," said Sirius slowly, "I just don't know. Karkaroff doesn't strike me as the type who'd go back to Voldemort unless he knew Voldemort was powerful enough to protect him. But whoever put your names in that goblet did it for a reason, and I can't help thinking the tournament would be a very good way to attack you and make it look like an accident."

"But Padfoot, why me?" Blair suddenly asked.

Sirius let out a sigh. "I don't know, Little B, but you have to watch out. We have an inkling for why Harry's in this, but we're not quite sure about you so you have to be extra careful."

Blair just nodded dejectedly. "Sure, the dragons would get to me first before I find out why."

"Right — these dragons," said Sirius, speaking very quickly now. "There's a way, Harry, Blair. Don't be tempted to try a Stunning Spell — dragons are strong and too powerfully magical to be knocked out by a single Stunner, you need about half a dozen wizards at a time to overcome a dragon —"

"Yeah, we know, we just saw," said Harry.

"But you can do it alone," said Sirius. "There is a way, and a simple spell's all you need. Just —"

But Blair held up a hand to silence him. She could hear footsteps coming down the spiral staircase behind him. "Go!" she hissed at Sirius. "Go! There's someone coming!"

Harry scrambled to his feet, hiding the fire while Blair lay down in front of it — they couldn't let anyone see Sirius. They heard a tiny pop in the fire and let out sighs of relief. They watched the bottom of the spiral staircase. Who had decided to go for a stroll at one o'clock in the morning, and stopped Sirius from telling them how to get past a dragon?

It was Ron. Dressed in his maroon paisley pajamas, Ron stopped dead facing Harry and Blair across the room, and looked around. "Who were you talking to?" he said.

Blair warned Harry with her eyes before speaking up. "We were just talking to each other, Ron."

"What's that got to do with you?" Harry snarled. "What are you doing down here at this time of night?"

"I just wondered where you —" Ron broke off, shrugging. "Nothing. I'm going back to bed."

"Just thought you'd come nosing around, did you?" Harry shouted. Blair stared at him wide-eyed. Surely, he knew Ron didn't have an idea. Just as she was about to say something, Ron spoke up.

"Sorry about that," said Ron, his face reddening with anger. "Should've realized you didn't want to be disturbed. I'll let you get on with practicing for your next interview in peace."

Harry was about to throw one of the badges saying POTTER AND WOOD REALLY STINK, but Blair held him back. Harry dropped the badge and shouted at Ron. "Just stay away from me!" He shrugged off Blair's hold and stormed upstairs.

Blair let out a sigh before muttering an apology to Ron as she passed by before going up. Blair took a glance at Harry's bed before deciding to let him calm down. She herself lay into her camp bed, staring at the ceiling, thinking about what was to come. Dragons. The word repeated in Blair's mind endlessly, even as her eyes closed and she went to sleep.

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Hello there! I hope you're liking the story so far, and unfortunately, I won't be able to update for this week so I put up 2 new chapters while I'm gone. We'll be going into the first task and the Yule Ball next week uwu. Now, who would you want to see Blair have more moments with? Thank you for all your support, everyone. Much love <3

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