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The First Task: Lyraa's Adventure


PROMPT: It will begin with an interschool wizard's duel tournament to identify a champion from each school. With all of the whole school united, you are selected along with your frenemy from another house, to represent your school (Hogwarts or Beauxbatons or Durmstrang) in the match. Do you have what it takes to win?

(A/N: I'm representing Hogwarts!)

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Her palms slipped down her pale face. Her blonde hair shined in the golden evening light peeking through the tent. Her pale face had emerald green eyes and pink lips. A braid was woven in her hair, tied by the end with her owl's feather. She was a beauty, but she didn't want to admit it to anybody.

The girl—Lyraa was her name—was worried. A lot.

She was selected for representing Hogwarts, the British wizardry school, to compete in the Triwizard tournament, along with the other wizard schools; Beauxbatons and Durmstrang. Each school had selected two students from their schools to compete in the first task: a wizard's duel against the three schools, with two representatives for the duel. Whichever school team won would go ahead to the second task, representing the school. If a person from a school fell in battle, the other would go ahead and would have to duel alone. Awesome.

Fortunately, Lyraa was selected. Her.

Unfortunately, her ex-friend—Kevin Merkis—was also selected.

Kevin was a strong wizard, capable of taking down sixth-year wizards, though he himself was in his fourth year. His sorcery in jinxes and spells made him popular and well-known around school—more as a bad boy. He was in the same house as Lyraa—Ravenclaw. More than half of the school would likely be voting for him to represent Hogwarts. Nevertheless, Lyraa doesn't underestimate herself. She is also magnificent at charms and jinxes for a fourth year student, especially her favourite spell—Expelliarmus—which she commonly used if bullies tried picking a fight with her. But she wasn't the best at spells; which Kevin excelled at.

Lyraa paced back and forth in her tent...

'I shouldn't be worried! Whoever wins in the duel, it'll be Hogwarts who wins!' She tried telling herself. It still didn't ease the growing knot of anxiety in her stomach, nor did it help her fast-beating heart. How would it? She was about to do the most scariest and exciting thing that she wasn't prepared well for, even she knew that.

She was going to duel four wizards with an enemy as a partner, being completely unprepared, all while dealing with the pressure of the school and with the obstacles that may or may not come in the way. Oh, and dying.

Lyraa put both her palms on her face and sighed deeply, trying to hold back the tears choking her throat. She remembered how Kevin was her friend in the first year, a good friend; but had broken up that friendship for some reason. He never talked to her again. He'd always sulk or twist his head away from her. That annoyed her. A lot.

Then they were informed that fourth-year students and above could enter the tournament. So naturally, she put her name in the Goblet of Fire. She didn't actually expect the goblet to spit out her name. And coincidentally, it also picked her ex-friend's name; whom she loathed.

Speak of the devil, Said boy passed by her, said, 'Stay away' and left to join the contenders outside. The girl flinched too late. Lyraa understood what her meant, to not stick her nose into battling. He knew it was his business. He also knew she was terrible at duelling. He knew due to the many times in the past when she lost in the easiest of attacking spells in tests, and he would tease her for that. All she was good at were counter-attacks and defences. Not useful.

A deafening roar from the crowd outside cued for the contenders to enter, and Lyraa grabbed her wand before moving out into the field outside.

Reality popped out like it was a vividly coloured dream. Hundreds and hundreds of faces stood out from the stands placed around the field. There were many big boulders and huge trees for hiding space. And then were the stupidly obvious five people standing in a circle. I joined them, making it six.

The Head of the Department of Magical Games and Sports, said in a magnified voice, "You know the rules! Kill somebody, you're disqualified! Use Dark magic, Disqualified! Cheating? Disqualified! Defeat only the other schools' students, not your partners! To surrender, send out red sparks from the ends of your wands and a teacher will soon come to help you! You know everything else, NOW BEGIN!!" And with that, all the students rushed in the middle.

Except Lyraa.

Instead of rushing head-first into the contenders, she took a wise decision and ran into the trees. She pointed the wand at herself and mumbled calmly, 'Wingardium Leviosa.' She levitated herself deeper into the trees and broke the spell when she was far from the duel, but close enough to see it. She sat in a foliage of leaves and branches and waited.

Lyraa wasn't one to ram straight into danger. She was cool headed—unlike her partner. Kevin started shooting several spells at the opponents, not knowing his partner had already run for cover. Lyraa backed him up; she occasionally casted charms or spells at the Durmstrang partners to lift them off their feet, and some jinxes to unbalance the Beauxbatons. She had planned it all out.

Until something didn't go as planned...

...And she was knocked off her feet.

A Durmstrang guy had somehow spotted her small stature in the trees. He sent a spell that sent her crashing in the tree behind her, coughing up blood. Lyraa assumed she must have broken a few ribs from that hard hit. She groaned and got up just as a second spell was summoned by the Beauxbatons, only to be deflected by Kevin, who made it just in time. He stood in front of Lyraa, and he told her, "I'll tell you this again. Stay away from this duel. Only one of us has to survive." And he charged again.

It was a blinding flurry of wand-against-wand, spell-against-spell and jinx-against-duel. Kevin was playing a good skill of wand-ship against the Beauxbatons' girls and the Durmstrang's boys. However, he was only one man. He'd get tired eventually. Lyraa tried to help however she could; some 'Stupefy!' and 'Impedimenta!' spells did come from random trees and hit the spells of the opposing opponents to counter them. But Hogwarts was still in a dangerous position. One spell hit on any of the two contenders from the school, and they'd be overpowered. Nevertheless, they took out one person from the Beauxbatons and the Durmstrang schools. The duel went on.

Suddenly, the entire field went cold. All of the cheeriness went away as a Dementor appeared in the play, sucking all the hopes of winning and happiness from the contenders. The Beauxbatons' girl screamed and shot out red sparks from the end of her wand, indicating her surrender. Lyraa had to also surrender from her foliage and come out into the open. Now only she, Kevin and the Durmstrang boy was left, along with the Dementor.

The Durmstrang boy wasn't able to protect himself both from the Dementor and the Hogwarts competitors. Lyraa was successful at making her Patronus—an owl—and was able to deflect the Dementor from herself. But Kevin wasn't able to, as he went down with the Durmstrang boy, shooting jinxes at him until the Durmstrang boy shot the red sparks. Kevin too passed out from the Dementor until Lyraa was able to weaken it.

And just like that, the duel was over. Lyraa had successfully won the duel, earning her school thirty points. She was selected as the single contender to bring her school ahead. Kevin's performance earned the school another ten. The Beauxbatons', being the first to give up, had earned ten. Durmstrang earned twenty, with an extra five for holding out for that long. All in all, Hogwarts was in the lead.

The house of Ravenclaw, Lyraa's house, celebrated the next day, with a grand, auspicious part which had a resplendent air all over. People from different houses gave her a pat-on-the-back for the show, even the surly Slytherins! All who were rooting for Kevin were slightly disappointed, but were glad that Hogwarts had set a high bar for the other schools. Lyraa had a very festive week, maybe her favourite time at Hogwarts.

And that was how her first task had ended.

But little did she know, there were some things happening to the universe...things that weren't going according to plan...

And in another Alternate Reality, there was a black haired girl typing away this story on a computer somewhere else....


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