章節 206: The First Task
All things considered, Daphne and Tracey had been right about Oleandra needing a change of pace; all she had needed was a nudge in the right direction to get her out of her rut and let her change her perspective.
After all, magic was all about manifesting your will onto reality; Oleandra already had the ample experience needed to work the spell after a week of nonstop training. In the end, she had only lacked the intent: wanting to change out of her sticky clothes that had been drenched in Butterbeer had worked quite nicely for the purposes of the spell.
The rest of the weekend and Monday passed by like a blur. Unfortunately for Oleandra, now that she could cast the Quick-Change Charm wandlessly, she had nothing to single-mindedly focus on. She still hadn't an inkling of what the first task would consist of; she kept imagining nightmarish scenarios in which she was forced to use branches of magic she had no idea existed, rendering her existing skill set completely useless.
When Oleandra woke up Tuesday morning, the day of the first task, she made the tactical decision to skip all of her classes in favour of one last practice session. There wasn't enough time to work on her own unfinished constellation spell, but there was enough time for one last thing.
Breathing in the cool morning air, Oleandra took a seat on a stone bench in the Quad Courtyard. Every single student was in class at this moment, so she finally had a moment to recentre herself.
"Evanesco," Oleandra muttered, pointing her wand at a stone tile.
Nothing happened; she had been hoping to Vanish part of the stone to leave behind an imprint in the shape of a rune, but the Vanishing Spell didn't work that way: it only Vanished one or more items as a whole. It was either the whole tile or nothing.
Oleandra had once Vanished part of a pile of mud marked with runes, but mud wasn't exactly solid, was it? It was a mass of discrete particles of clay, dirt and silt. Everything being made of atoms, Oleandra would have thought that this logic would also have applied to stone, but no dice: magic worked with how its caster perceived reality, not reality itself. She'd have to create a new spell or alter this one if it was to do what she wanted it to do.
"Diffindo," Oleandra said, making several slashing movements with her wand at the tile.
Blowing away the dust and rock fragments, Oleandra eyed her work critically. She could feel the rune she had carved into the stone tile activating; this approach worked, though the rune's power fluctuated wildly due to the rough way she had drawn it. If it had been anyone else, the rune wouldn't have even activated in the first place.
She continued making a mess of the Quad all throughout the morning with her experiments, which were mostly to take her mind off her impending doom. When the bell rang, signalling the end of the morning classes, she'd been rummaging through the enchanted pockets of her combat robes, making certain that she hadn't forgotten anything important. Oleandra carefully slipped her wand into her special robes' pocket and reluctantly got up from her seat to go to the Great Hall for lunch, heart beating wildly all the while.
Oleandra didn't have much of an appetite, but she still forced down a tuna sandwich; she was going to need to keep up her strength. As she was nibbling her way through a second sandwich, Professor Snape strode over to her and raised his voice.
"Miss Greengrass," he said expressionlessly. "If you're almost done with your impression of a chipmunk, you are expected on the grounds. The first task is about to begin."
"You can do it, Sis," said Daphne calmly. "We believe in you."
"Good luck!" said Tracey, giving her a thumbs up.
Oleandra left her second sandwich unfinished and followed Professor Snape down to the grounds, where he ushered her into a tent near the edge of the forest, leaving her only with a single message: "Do not let us down."
There were already a few people in the tent: Fleur Delacour and Viktor Krum, as well as one of the judges, Ludovic Bagman. Oleandra was comforted to see that she wasn't the only one to be nervous; Delacour's skin was somehow even paler than its usual porcelain tint, and Krum was looking constipated.
"There she is!" Bagman said cheerfully. "Our first Hogwarts champion— We're still waiting on Harry— I'll begin the explanations when everyone's present."
Bagman was wearing his old colours, from when he'd been a Beater for the Wimbourne Wasps, and was looking quite in his element, at least when compared to the three champions, who were making faces as if they were about to be executed.
"Harry! Good-oh!" said Bagman happily, "come in, come in, make yourself at home!"
"Well, now we're all here — time to fill you in!" said Bagman brightly. "When the audience has assembled and are all settled in for the show, I'll be passing you this bag in turn," —he shook a bulging purple bag at the champions upon saying these words— "from which you'll select one small-scale model of the thing you are about to face! There are four varieties, so to say. And I have to tell you something else too… ah, yes… your task is to collect the golden egg!"
Oh good, they weren't going to have them perform some unknown magic; they only needed to fight something, and steal a golden egg from it! Oleandra blew a sigh of relief, garnering her some strange looks from the other three champions. What, did they know something she didn't?
Eggs… what laid eggs? Chickens? Ducks? …Basilisks? No, that would be in bad taste, not to mention incredibly dangerous and illegal. Phoenixes? Too rare and hard to catch. Thunderbirds, protected species… Dragons, maybe…? As Oleandra distracted herself by making a mental list of magical oviparous creatures, the noises originating from outside the tent were growing louder and louder. Quite a few people had come to watch the first task, judging by the hubbub.
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