36. Juvenility

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Fourth Book

June 24th, 1995
Sixth Year

It all felt very juvenile now.

The pranks, the arguments, the anger. Juvenile.

The time that Ara, Cedric and Cho spent together in the library rambling on about irrelevant subjects, such as Ara's non-existent relationship with Fred Weasley, instead of training for the Third Task felt incredibly juvenile.

"He's fine, right?" Cho's desperate voice brought Ara back to reality.

I should've been stricter.

"Yeah," The blonde said meekly, "-He's fine,"

Cho had taken to pacing, in fact, most of the audience for the Third Task had, but Ara was too nerve-stricken to do so. The blonde stayed sitting in her seat, head buried in her hands.

Fuck.

This task really had been an awful idea, entertainment and safety-wise.

The contestants had gone into some stupid hedge maze, and that was that. There was no way of seeing what was happening to them. There was no way of seeing if they were alive.

Idiots. All the organizers. Idiots.

Fleur Delacour had been the first to give up. She'd sent out a beam of red-light from her wand, and the tournament organizers had flown her out of the maze.

That was the only form of communication that the contestants had with the outside world. A measly red-light.

Ara stood up abruptly, which actually scared a few people sitting around her. Cho gave her a confused look, but the blonde didn't care to explain what she was doing, mostly because she didn't know herself.

Without giving it much thought, Ara bee-lined towards where the Beauxbatons students sat in the wooden tournament stands. She didn't bat an eye towards her fellow Hogwarts colleagues as they curiously watched her, and she ignored the murmurs from other visitors that came to watch the Third Task.

Rita Skeeter being one of them.

Ara needed to talk to Fleur.

The part-Veela looked shaken up. Ara had actually felt quite sympathetic when the girl had first given up, she'd shot her a friendly smile and nod as Fleur was escorted towards the rest of the Beauxbatons students. The French girl had given her a nearly embarrassed look before weakly smiling back.

That had been ages ago

And there hadn't been any sign of Cedric, or Harry, or even Viktor Krum for the matter, since.

What's going on in those stupid bloody hedges?

Fleur and Ara locked eyes as the latter made her way towards the former. Fleur mentally prepared herself for what was to come, because she knew how much Ara loved the boy who she'd long ago decided was family. And she knew that said boy had been in the maze for far too long.

There had been no introductions.

"What happened in there?" Ara's question, uttered in French, was direct and to the point. "-How dangerous was it?"

"I can hardly remember, something attacked me and I blacked out," Fleur mumbled. "Clearly, it was too dangerous for me. But, Cedric's experience may be different,"

The two blonde girls were silent for a moment.

Mere hours ago, Ara had been teasing Fleur about her new-found fascination with Bill Weasley.

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