Cedric tried to hide his nervousness as the judges entered the tent. They had all been informed that the first task was something to do with dragons, two weeks ago by Aries, who had learned it from Karkaroff.

Cedric was as prepared as he could be, which wasn't much considering that he was going to face against a fully grown dragon.

Mr Bagman had just announced that they had they had to retrieve a golden egg from nesting female dragons and motioned Cedric to come closer.

"You first Mr Diggory, since you are the only one of our champions who is actually of age."

"I am?" What about Aries and Louise?

"Yes, Mr Lestrange and Ms Delacour would be of age on Christmas." Mr Crouch replied, guessing his thoughts.

Louise and Aries shared a glance.

"We are not long lost twins, are we? Because that would make the courtship thing really weird." Louse said with a laugh.

Aries was courting Louise? When did that happen?

Mr Crouch coughed to gain his attention and Cedric sheepishly rubbed his head before putting his hand inside the offered bag and taking out a miniature dragon.

"Ah, Chinese Fireball. You'll go first Mr Diggory. Better get to the enclosure." Mr Bagman told him excitedly. Cedric resisted the urge to throttle him, while there others wished him luck.

He reached the edge to enclosure and waited for their canon to blow, mentally recalling the spells he would be doing.

The canon did blow and he entered the arena which contained a Chinese Fireball, which was much scarier in person. Cedric quickly tranfigured one of the rocks in the arena into a believable German Shephard. Just to be safe, he tranfigured a few more animals. The dragon appeared to be engaged with the decoys and Cedric sneaked past it, to the nest containing the golden egg. He quickly picked it up and dived to avoid the dragon fire aimed for him, which narrowly missed him. Apparently, the dragon had grown tired of the animals and had turned his attention to Cedric, who had no choice but to run like he had never ran before, all the while being silently thankful for his Quidditch honed leg muscles.

He arrived the safety line without any injury and the dragon was escorted out of the arena. The adrenaline was finally leaving his system and he barely paid any attention to the scores, which were 9 from Dumbledore, Crouch and Bagman, 8 from Madame Maxime and 4 from Karkaroff. He went to the spectator stands to wait for other champion's performances and was immediately crowded by his fellow Hufflepuffs, who congratulated and praised him for his performance.

About ten minutes later, the canon blew again, and Aries entered the arena opposite to Swedish Shortsnout. He immediately performed a disillusionment spell on himself and apparently other sneaking spells too, because two minutes later, the golden egg was seemingly lifted in the air and carried towards the the safety line, without the dragon being any wiser.

The crowd booed due to the lack of action, but Cedric could admit that this was a much better plan than his. Even the judges acknowledged this, as Aries received a higher score, with 10 from Dumbledore, Karkaroff and Crouch and 9 from Bagman and Madame Maxime.

Louise was the next to appear against Common Welsh Green and didn't waste anytime to cast a leglimens at the dragon. Cedric was confused at that, because it was inadvisable to use leglimency against creatures as their brains were very different from humans and could lead to the caster getting lost in their mindscape.

Apparently, Louise knew what she was doing because it looked like she had had a successful talk with the dragon in its mind, it was nudging the golden egg towards Louise with its snout and curling protectively over the real eggs.

The crowd burst into applause at the French girl seemingly making the dragon do her bidding. Her performance however was not reflected in her score, mainly due to Karkaroff being a biased git. She got a 10 from Madame Maxime and Dumbledore, 9 from Bagman and Crouch and 2 from Karkaroff.

Last but not the least, Harry Potter emerged from the enclosure to face a Hungarian Horntail. Cedric sighed. The boy really had the worst luck. He hoped that Harry had a plan.

He apparently, he did, as he cast an accio at..... something. Cedric looked around to see what he had summoned but was unable to find anything. A few moments later, something came flying towards Harry, from the direction of the castle, which turned out to his broomstick.

Cedric gaped at him. Had he actually summoned a broomstick from all the way from the castle? Just how powerful was this kid?

Then he remembered that he was able to defeat You Know Who, when he was in his diapers, and the incredulity left him.

The magical power however did not make him smart because he was actually trying to outfly a dragon. After several heart wrenching minutes, Cedric was thankful to see that he actually managed to do it, with only some minor burns.

His performance wasn't bad as a fourteen year old, but it wasn't at par with the others and his score reflected that. He got 8 from Dumbledore and Bagman, 7 from Madame Maxime and Crouch and 1 from Karkaroff.

Cedric breathed a sigh of relief. The first task was over without any of them dying or getting seriously injured.